A Tale of Suspension: Lonely in the Dark
by PhoenixDragonDreamer
Summary: That is after all, what one did while in distress - put out a call, see if anyone in the whole wide universe will answer. Just to see  if on mere chance  an answer would be forthcoming...
1. Chapter 1

**~Part One~**

_A distress call._

_That is after all, what one did while in distress - put out a call, see if anyone in the whole wide universe will answer. Just to see (if on mere chance) an answer would even be forthcoming. To get one out of distress back into...distress-less? Surely that was a word. He'd make sure to have it put in a dictionary._

_As soon as he was no longer in distress._

_Either way - when one was in dire straits (distress) one would be happy to see anyone - anyone at all, right?_

_Turns out that assumption is incorrect._

_Fascinating how the Universe worked - how it liked to have itself a funny at your expense. He should know._

_It happened to him a lot._

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

"Where will you be going?" Rex grunted - as ever the soul of impatience and nosiness. Was one of the things Jack liked about him, actually. Time would tell if a couple of centuries of living would temper that as only a couple of centuries could.

Amazing what perspectives you get when you have thousands of years to contemplate your navel (and other bits) in.

Come to think of it, a couple of centuries hadn't changed him much.

Ah, well - there was always hope. He didn't think on the rest of that phrase; a little too much life at his own feet and not enough living it here of late.

"Around," Jack responded vaguely. He grinned when Rex's scowl deepened, throwing his coat on with a flourish and a wriggle of his shoulders to set the heavy material in place. "Things are rather quiet here - think I'll just beebop around the old Universe and see what tries to pop out and eat me."

"Not funny," Gwen muttered from the other side of the room. She was still sporting a wrist brace from the last thing that attempted to eat them - and everyone had the good sense to not throw jokes around about squids, octopi and tentacle porn either; damned thing had been all teeth and appendages.

"Sorry, Gwen," Jack said contritely. "I just mean - you know, while you are healing up and with everything quiet on the home front, I should take my vacation now. Never know when I'll get another."

"But...you are coming back - right?"

Her tone, small and slightly wistful had Jack crossing the room in two strides, scooping her into a bone-crushing hug.

"Of course I'll come back," he promised, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I always do, don't I?"

Gwen didn't answer, just gave him an extra squeeze in return before turning her attention back to her paperwork, deliberately keeping herself from looking at him. Jack stifled a sigh and grabbed his sidearm, holstering it with deft movements that spoke of long practice, understanding her fears even as they irritated him.

After Ianto, nothing was really certain in their world.

He paused at the new Hub door, glancing back at the only two people on Earth he could call friends as well as colleagues. He was only going to be gone a few days their time, maybe five at the most - but he could get behind the need to assure them, to ground them in the certainty of his presence. What else did the three of them have beyond that?

A lot of things had changed since Ianto. Too many things.

"See you guys in a few days."

"Sure, man."

"Have a good vacation, Jack."

He left the Hub with a deliberate quick step, feeling Gwen's eyes follow him until the door rolled closed, cutting him off from sight.

Why did he have a feeling his vacation was going to be cut short?

He took a deep breath and walked into the plaza that sat above their Hub (always with the underground bases!) and toggled his Vortex Manipulator to take him to the Solderian Galaxy. There was an appointment he had to keep with some Klazian Ale - and if there was still a certain bartender working there, he wouldn't be hurting for company after.

"Definitely my idea of a vacation," he said to himself cheerfully and slapped down on the tesser reactor, the only indication he had ever been there at all being a faint crackle and a pervasive smell of ozone.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

_He hadn't meant to get himself into such a pickle._

_Sure, he knew the ground was unstable. And sure he knew there were no other beings (well_, living _ones, anyway) for miles and miles (and miles) around. And he was completely (positively, undeniably) sure he got the date right. There was suppose to be an expedition (with one Doctor River Song) any minute now - he had double-checked all the figures twice._

_Not that he could triple-check them - he couldn't see a bloody thing, truth be told. The ground did this shifty-collapsey thing and well...here he was. She should be along any minute though, wearing a bemused smile and maybe something tight (yet sensible), a contingent of archaeologists behind her -_

_(With a supressed shudder at the thought)_

_- all loaded down with lights and tools and..._

_Any minute now._

_He coughed in the thin air, muffling the sound in the crook of his arm so he wouldn't collapse any more of the shale above his head; a lesson well learned when he sneezed earlier and spent five minutes unearthing himself from the resulting fallout. He had also made several attempts to climb out, only to be dumped back into the darkness mere inches up - all handholds disintegrating before they were fully formed. And the sonic was out for all the reasons listed above (and then some). He managed to get one signal going before the rumbling overhead got too ominous and before his screwdriver just...stopped working. He didn't know if the lack of air and the lack of signal from his sonic was connected, but he wasn't going to get much of a chance to find out if he didn't get up top soon._

_And all he could do was wait._

_A frustrating pass time, considering his TARDIS was literally five feet away from the hole he was in. No way to climb out, no way to call for help - and for some reason, the very _air _was getting harder to breathe._

'This,_' he thought irritably. '_Is why 'going off the radar' can be chalked up as one of my less brilliant ideas._'_

_Oh well...no hope for it but to settle down, stop that damnable pacing and just wait. River was bound to be along soon - and though he was in for quite a ribbing, it would be worth it just to be able to breathe again. At this rate he was going to have to put himself in suspended animation and what would he do if -_

_He stopped himself from thinking further along those lines and just concentrated on the idea that (for once) he got the time-lines right and he would be rescued soon. If it wasn't River and her dig-mates, it was bound to be someone answering the (weak) summons from the sonic._

_There was always a way out. He just had to wait for his to happen along and give him a lift._

_Any minute now._

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

Well.

Vacations were more boring than he remembered.

It was sad, he reflected, when you got more excitement out of hunting down weevils than you did in a bar chock full of willing and pretty flesh on display, cold drink in your hand. All the elements for fun were there, but the fun was still decidely lacking.

First off there was the bartender (Hans? Handel? Hampstead?) - he was just as gorgeous as Jack remembered, but definitely more vacant and foppish than he had previously thought. He had nothing against vacant and foppish (he himself could be vacant and foppish when the occasion called for it), but it was disappointing that this was pretty much all the lovely (Hamish?) had on offer.

Besides being lovely.

Maybe he wasn't drunk enough.

Or maybe he was just getting too old.

Now _there_was something to laugh about.

He took another sip of his drink and let his eyes wander around the bar, vaguely unsettled by the hollow ache in the pit of his stomach (which had nothing to do with the beer, it being quite excellent as always). Was this was homesick was like? Or was he just rediscovering the horror of boredom?

He had lived...well, a long time would be putting it mildly - but he was blessed with the inability (generally) to be bored. There was always something interesting right around the corner - a fight to be fought, a drink to be consumed, banter to be exchanged and willing bodies to bed. But over the last few days, there was just...numbness. Drink couldn't counter it; pretty bartenders with unmemorable names couldn't temper it. His thoughts constantly wandered to home (well, _Earth_), and when they weren't wandering there, they were falling even farther away and more deeply into the past.

The past that held the Doctor and a box of the bluest-blue that was older than even he could comprehend.

Obviously he hadn't had enough to drink.

He called for (Hemlich? Hamlet? Henry?), to bring him another and grimly set himself to enjoy his vacation, boredom and being old and the past be damned. This was his time off - fuck knows when he'd get another - and he was going to have a good time if it killed him. And at this rate, that would probably be the _only_way he'd have a good time.

"So," he boomed cheerily at the yet-nameless bartender. "You into erotic asphyxia?"

"What?" H-fill-in-the-blank asked, confusion evident on his pretty, vacant face as he slid another cold lager across the counter to Jack's elbow.

"Nothing," Jack smiled, half glad the suggestion sailed over the other man's head. Knowing his luck, H-something-or-other would actually take him up on the offer and succeed in permanently killing him.

Gwen would be pissed.

"Okay," He-Who-Is-Unnamed blinked. "Just let me know if you need anything else."

He actually _winked_as he said it and it was all Jack could do to keep from pounding his forehead (repeatedly) against the bar. Completely and totally unreal came to mind. And to think, he had been convinced the guy was cute the last time he rolled through here. Alright, he had been grieving - he hadn't been in his right mind - but that was no excuse.

'_The guy with no standards suddenly has standards,_' he griped to himself. '_Yippee._'

Damn Ianto anyhow. And no, he wasn't going to think about him; or the asshole in the blue box that ultimately put Ianto in his path - and goddammit he didn't come here to get morbid.

He was definitely getting old.

And was (also definitely), getting bored.

The only interesting thing that had happened in the last two days was his Manipulator giving him shit - in the middle of a vortex, no less. He had been halfway to his destination (generally an eye-blink while traveling), when it let out a spitting, hissing type noise, a series of numbers and complicated figures flipping rapidly across the screen before it blinked back to his destination point, his landing smooth (well, as smooth as it can be with V.M.s) and uneventful; as if the damned thing hadn't tried to crap out on him halfway there.

And of course, crappy faults in manipulators and complicated symbols and mathematics always led to him thinking about the Doctor. And thinking about the Doctor always meant trouble. He was on vacation; he wasn't suppose to be finding trouble unless it meant too many drinks and fists flying.

And damn it all - it took him forever to fix the damned machine after the Doctor (purposefully) broke it. It'd better _not_be going belly-up. He'd never get home in five days that way (well, the five days Earth-time from when he'd left). And he didn't think mere time and no machine to travel it in would stop Gwen from killing him.

He worried too much about that lately.

Definitely getting old. And bored. And old.

Vacant-Foppish-and Pretty threw Jack another wink and that clinched it.

'_Hell with this - time to go find some real action._' he thought to himself, aggravated all of a sudden.

He slapped enough credits on the bar to cover his drinks and a generous tip, ignoring the surprised disappointment on the bartender's face as he snapped his coat straight and made for the door. Even falling through eternity via a shitty Manipulator was bound to be more interesting than this bullshit.

He took two deep breaths of the (perpetual) night air of Klum Seven and typed in a destination without really looking at what he was doing, his need to escape over-riding the need to know where he was headed.

He'd find out when he got there.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

_The Doctor really wasn't sure how much time had passed - and being a Time-Lord that was saying something. The air (besides being thick and hard to breathe) seemed to dull his thinking and he had to fight to remember why he was even there at all._

_Ah, yes - River...expedition...anytime now._

_He had slowed both of his hearts to two beats per minute, trying to lessen his intake of oxygen (what could be found of it) - and needless to say, it hadn't helped his state of awareness. Nor had it aided his need to breathe either. If he had half of his wits about him, he'd've been scared out of his mind; but he didn't do scared._

_He was close - but he wasn't there just yet._

'River...expediton...any minute_'_

_He kept the thought circling in his mind, bending all of his determination to it as if he could make it happen with sheer will alone. He had tried to reach out psychically to see if he could touch anything (his TARDIS for one) but he came (astoundingly) across a vast stretch of...Nothing...in his mind - and it chilled him enough to not attempt such a thing again._

_As far as he could tell, that had been a few days ago. But it could have been mere hours for all of that - there was no true way for him to tell. Was this how it was for humans and other creatures grounded by the steady monotony of time? If so, he was garnering a new appreciation for their ability to not going barking mad the second they took their first breath._

_Breathing._

_It was harder to breathe...again._

_How many times had he thought this?_

_He took another shallow sip of air and fumbled for his sonic screwdriver, unable to remember if he had sent a signal or not. He had a vague recollection of hitting setting one and thinking 'SOS' before a warning from the earth above stopped him - but he wasn't really sure if he had done it or dreamed it._

_He took (yet another) slow breath, hitting the release on the sonic (while mentally crossing his fingers) only to be dismayed when it didn't respond. Not so much as a click or hint of light. It took all of his vast centuries of control to keep himself from panicking as one clear thought cut through the dense fog of his mind: This was it, he was done for. He had landed really wrong this time. River had either already come and long gone - or was not going to arrive. Maybe (with his luck), not for another century._

_He was all too aware of the irony of it - his TARDIS maybe (at the most) fifteen feet from him and yet unreachable; a sonic screwdriver that couldn't work because the power that kept it going (and kept him on track and able to even _think_) was muffled almost to the point of non-existence; and he was rapidly running out of air. Even stasis wouldn't maintain him if this kept up._

'Maybe,_' he thought as he slipped into unconsciousness (for the third, fourth, fifth time?). '_Maybe this is for the best._'_

_Above him the TARDIS called out softly, endlessly - Her own distress an endless hum against the blank cold of the stars above._

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

Three destinations and five days (Vortex-Time) later and the restless itch that had settled in Jack's bones hadn't gotten any better. If he was honest with himself (and he rarely was) it had only gotten worse. To the point where he had turned down five offers to fuck and declined numerous drinks sent his way to smooth the path to even more offers.

Hell with getting old.

At this point he was half-way to being dead.

At least his Manipulator was behaving again. It had only thrown up that random series of (half-familiar) squiggles and complicated equations once during his last three hops across Time and that was when he had escaped from Klum Seven to an even more dreary hole-in-the-wall with an even more unmemorable bartender. It had fizzed and popped, that odd assortment of symbols once again flying rapidly across the screen as the Vortex shifted and then stilled all around him, before he was deposited abruptly at his destination; feeling even more unsettled than before.

Somehow, the two events (separate even as they seemed related) nagged at him, leaving him with a hollow, voided feeling that he could only pin down after the fact. It took two more Jumps (both completely uneventful) before he fully realized that the depressed, almost floating feeling that had been tagging at his heels since Klum Seven was even related to the ache inside his bones. His intuition had never guided him wrong - and his intuition told him that the series of fluctuations in his Manipulator were important.

And that the total lack of them during his last two jumps was even more important.

His thoughts turned once more to the Doctor and he almost wished the Time-Lord was there. He would know what those funny symbols meant - he was sure of it; there really wasn't much the Doctor didn't know.

But his longing for the Time-Lord and his blue-blue box of wonder was suppose to be long passed. No matter how much Jack had pushed away the thought of him the last few days, the Doctor kept creeping back in (stronger than ever), turning his musings dark and regretful.

All over a malfunction with his V.M. and a stupid read-out on the screen that meant less than nothing to him.

Still...the notion that the malfunction had happened at all was worrying. And you'd think that the fact it seemed to be fine, to be fully operational with no glitches would put that nagging itch to rest. In truth (after several rounds of systems checks) it only seemed to make it worse. _Something_ was wrong - maybe not with the Universe and Time and Space itself (though he could never be sure on that end), but there was enough not-right within his own little universe, that he couldn't even enjoy what was suppose to be his damned _vacation_.

"Dammit," he muttered to himself, startling the Verlaxian next to him into a bright shade of green. "No help for it, I guess - better track it down and see what's what."

He nodded his apology to the native of his latest watering hole, relaxing when it turned a lazy shade of blue in response (Verlaxians were no joke when it came to fighting - all those extra arms), and slapped a few credits on the counter; once again turning to leave yet _another_bar with nothing to show for it but fewer credits in his pocket and a belly full of souring beer.

He stepped out into the bustling nightlife of Vernox Temur and searched out a quiet spot where he could do his calculations in relative peace without being disturbed by the local constabulary. He wasn't sure how long it would take - but he now knew there was nothing wrong with his Manipulator and likely there never had been. Maybe he had come across some stray universal flotsam and jetsam that the machine just happened to pick up on (in which case he could go back to drinking in peace) - or maybe (and this was more likely), he had come across something that needed to be seen to over two Jumps ago.

He cursed to himself as he ran another set of checks - wondering why he had never stopped to think about any of this until now, his inability to see beyond 'vacation' making the unsettling lump in his gut commence to rolling unpleasantly. He put everything else (every fear, worry or nightmare-to-be), to one side as he ran another series of tests on the Manipulator, bypassing systems maintenance to run deeper checks within the system recall.

As the odd circles and numbers flashed across his screen (a pattern forming in his mind, even as he couldn't make heads or tails of what it was suppose to be saying), he felt that almost comforting ache for the Doctor and his knowledge; the scent of adventure he carried with him everywhere. He would know what this meant - and he would be the first to chase it, flashing his devil-may-care grin over his shoulder before plunging into pursuit, sure in his hearts that his Companions were (always, always) right behind him.

The most Jack could get from the pattern was that it must be some type of distress beacon. It was a weak signal at best (which would explain why it showed up in transit the first two Jumps and not at all the next two), and tracking it was going to take awhile. He just hoped he could capture it fully and trace it to its source before said source faded out completely. He had a feeling that not finding the source - and soon - would mean bad news for the guy on the other end.

If they weren't dead or dying already.

He'd kick himself for delaying, but that would eat up too much time and concentration. So would wishing and hoping for the one man who wanted to never see his face again if he could help it, distress call or no distress call.

Realizing he was alone and the only hope of the person (or persons) at the other end of what must surely be an SOS, he bent all of his thoughts to the task at hand; ideas of vacation, the Doctor, Gwen and the notion he was chasing so much air and smoke (maybe needlessly) shoved to the side as he put his machine to work.

Time to do what he did best.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

_The Doctor slowly came around again, stretching his senses into the pervading darkness only to encounter more of the strange Nothing that seemed to be sapping his strength and ability to breathe. He knew that time had passed – perhaps a great lot of time – but he couldn't be exactly sure anymore. Maybe he had always been here – where ever Here _was_._

_The air was worse than before._

_He knew there was a sky overhead, there had to be. So therefore air had to be coming in from somewhere above him._

_Why was it so hard to_ breathe_?_

_He checked his hearts and found the right one was down to a beat every three minutes (very dangerous) and the left was struggling to make up for it by beating twice for every minute. This was bad…this was very bad._

_If only he could remember what had happened._

_He cast back in his memory and came up with only blankness, his last recollection –_

_He had fallen through a hole, hadn't he?_

_Or did he just fall through it in his mind?_

_That was a nasty thought._

_But even more worrisome than _Where_ he happened to be at the moment (with the bad air, Nothing beyond the darkness and the distress his body was under), was the _Why_._

Why was he here?

_He could think better if he had something to drink. He would also be able to think if he could stop these damned shivers that jolted him every few seconds. Once he was warm and a little less parched, he could answer the burning questions of the day._

_"Susan," he croaked, swiping dry lips with an even drier tongue. "Susan – bring me some water…and a blanket…there's a good girl. Think…I've caught a…touch…of the Pervisian Flu."_

_He waited a beat and realized he couldn't hear her reply. He also couldn't sense her presence. It had nothing to do with the Void beyond his immediate area and the dark. She...she wasn't here (where ever Here happened to be)._

_The sense of panic settled into his cold bones at the same moment the numbness of inevitability sank through the fog surrounding his mind._

_Did they finally catch them?_

_They must have. And if they did – if he never made it off of Gallifrey, then –_

_Was he…was he locked in the Cube?_

_He suppressed a horrified shiver, the darkness pressing down on him until he couldn't tell if he was standing up or lying down._

_In the Cube it didn't matter._

Time _didn't matter._

_An eternity of waiting, within no time at all._

_There was no way out of the Cube (he knew this, somehow) and he couldn't be sure the Citadel Guards wouldn't hurt her, no matter his family's rank. Susan was just a little girl – not even yet 50. She wasn't involved in the Revolt, but if they thought they could use her against him -_

_"Should have stayed behind, girl," he muttered. "They all…warned…you…didn't they? Doddering old fool…should have known…never escape."_

_He was too tired and parched to even be able to grieve for whatever horrible fate might befall her, much less call out to whomever happened to be on the other side of his prison . He knew that sleep would be dangerous, he would be off guard when they came to get him – but he was just so exhausted._

_He could close his eyes for just a minute…just one little minute. With rest he could formulate a plan to break out of the unbreakable and rescue his granddaughter – the only one left in all of his world that loved him back with the fierceness that he loved her. He would save her. He would get her home._

_Maybe then he would be forgiven._

_He slipped back into a fitful sleep, unable to hear the TARDIS as She called endlessly above him, as empty without Her Doctor as he was lost without Her. If things went as She had planned, help would be on the way. But even a machine such as Herself, with all of Time and Space under Her ever watchful eyes, couldn't see if it would be enough._

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

Two more days of Jumps (too numerous to keep track of) and all of it (seemingly) for nothing. In the end, he was just chasing his tail; a tireless loop up and down and around the signal, never getting any closer – though he had to thank the gods that he always seemed _somewhat_in range of the transmission. He just couldn't pin it down and home in on it.

And he was getting tired.

He was going to be pissed if all of this was over a child's toy gone wonky or something equally silly. It had happened before – a very, _very_long time ago – but it had happened. If he got drawn in twice like that he would have to call it quits on the rescue business.

"Maybe take up knitting," he muttered distractedly to himself. "I hear knitting is nice and relaxing."

He toggled the strange symbols into being again and frowned distractedly at them, wondering for the five thousandth time at the almost familiar design of them. He had been to many places, many time-streams and had seen numerous wonders – but this set of squiggles and circular lines was unique, not only in pattern but in the precision of that pattern. This could only be a language – and one that he had encountered before, though oddly enough his Manipulator couldn't seem to translate it. It was almost as if the V.M. didn't recognize it _as_ a language. Shoot, the blasted thing didn't even recognize the funny pattern as a _pattern_- much less a distress call (which he knew it had to be).

"Unless I'm just old and bored and imagining things," he sighed, plunking himself down on a handy bench near his latest Jump Point. "That certainly wouldn't be a first, either."

He scrubbed his hands through his hair, frustrated and beyond tired – at the end of his rope. He could keep searching in fruitless circles…or he could call for help. The bad thing was, there was only one person he could call for help and he had already done so once, receiving no answer. Not even an answering machine.

"Way to make a guy feel loved." Jack groused, but punched up the number for the second time in two days, sure he was going to only get more of the same.

Nothing.

Which was very much what he did get – nothing. Not even a dial tone.

"Huh."

He knew the Doctor wasn't fond of him after his…mishap – but the Old Girl never had a problem with him. Had put him through a couple of times as a matter of fact; even had gone so far as to lead Jack straight to them. If _She_wasn't answering –

It hit him then.

The funny squiggles and number sequences. They weren't random. They were a language and yet they weren't. What was it the Doctor called Gallifreyian? The 'base code' of the Universe?

The chills Jack felt certainly weren't from the night air (though it was quite crisp and refreshingly autumnal); he had just figured out where that signal was coming from and he had a nasty feeling to what it just might lead to. The Captain could deal with a lot of things. He had seen friends and loved ones die – he had put some of those friends and loved ones deliberately in the path of their deaths – but he couldn't see _this_.

If this was truly the end of the Doctor…

He felt another chill as memory (that ever elusive and nasty-tempered mistress) provided him with another fragment of his time – a while back, after he had just lost Ianto and was grieving the only way he knew how. He had seen **him**- and the look in his eyes –

No, he had to be wrong.

Jack had already launched to his feet, rerouting the signal and setting the number for the TARDIS in parallel to it, comparing and collating the patterns to see if he could get a clearer path, half-hoping he was wrong; that he was just jumping to conclusions. Too much of a coincidence – thinking of the Doctor and the signal leading straight to the same man.

'_Maybe,_' his brain supplied treacherously. '_You were on the right path all along – but just chose to ignore it._'

"Shut up," he muttered, not realizing he was imitating the Doctor almost perfectly as his fingers flew over the V.M.'s buttons. "I'm busy."

His heart sank as the Manipulator beeped once, twice – confirming what his heart had already known. The signal matched the TARDIS'. Not only were the two 'patterns' close in location (time and space-wise), they were also a perfect match in resonance. There was only the slightest difference between them – which could only mean that the sonic (such a part of the TARDIS Herself any signal from it could be mistaken as coming from Her), was not too far from it. The TARDIS might be boosting the SOS, though – which would only make it harder to track the Doctor and his screw-driver, unless he could separate back out the pattern and home in on it once he was close.

If he could even get close that was.

The signal was only getting weaker – two more Jumps and he might lose it altogether – even with a recording of the TARDIS' number to bounce off of. There was just too much Universe to wade through. All he could hope was that the 'circle' he had been chasing was truly a circle after all – that he might find what he was looking for in the middle of it all.

It was a chance worth taking – it might be the Doctor's only chance.

'_Unless you are too late_.'

"Can't think like that," he said to himself quietly. "Where there is life there is hope. He taught me that – have to remember it. Just…please be alive, Doctor."

The alien might not be too happy to see his rescuer – but if it meant the Doctor came out of this alive and in one piece, Jack could live with the Time-Lord's displeasure. There was no question in his mind that the Doctor was in trouble, though…after all, he _is_the Doctor.

Crossing his fingers, Jack set the V.M. for his next Jump.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

_It was dark (so very, very dark) down here and so very, very hard to _breathe_-_

_He could feel himself panicking, losing control over his rational thought; even as he remembered his father had always cautioned against such things._

'Use your fear, Theta…don't let it use you. Never run when you are scared and never panic when you are lost. It only leads to worse situations._'_

_But Papa (he was sure) had never been in a place so dark, so lonely and hard to breathe in._

_He stretched his senses (still tingling and new), and found nothing – less than that, even._

_There was..._

_Nothing._

_He tried to keep the panic at bay, to hold tight to those wise words; but he found his right heart was beating only once every few minutes and his left heart was slowing, too. He didn't know why (how) – but he knew that this was dangerous; he knew that it was Death, even for those who could live for a long, long time. And he hadn't even regenerated once yet – he might not regenerate at all. He heard the whispers when no one thought he was listening, he heard the fears (about him, of him) and he knew what they meant…especially if he died here, wherever here was._

'Please don't leave me here._'_

_Did he fall down the old mine-shaft at the estate?_

_He must have – there was no other explanation. He disobeyed Papa (again) and now, he was lost in the old shaft that was rumored to be haunted. Koschei had told him that and if anyone would know,_ he _would; he could always sense such things._

_Too bad he was wrong about this one. A place had to have Something to be haunted and there was Nothing._

_Koschei._

_He would know what to do._

_He was bound to be close by. He was Theta's brother, his best friend (and equal at finding unbridled mischief). If he could reach Koschei –_

_Theta tried to call out, but found to his horror his throat was too dry, airless (for some reason) and he was left in the dark without a voice. Panic tried to take over his mind again, but he fought it off as best he could – his father's smooth, deep tones ringing as clear in his head as if the ancient Time-Lord was standing right beside him._

_After several controlled (gasping, sipping) breaths, he plotted out what he knew: He was in a deep, dark hole; he couldn't seem to climb out (he had a vague recollection of trying, though that was faded and dull around the middle), and Koschei was nowhere nearby (that he could feel)._

_He could only hope this meant that his friend had gone for help – because if Koschei was here after all…with _him_-_

_He didn't know if the fading of his consciousness was due to fear for his friend, or if it was caused by the lack of oxygen. Either way, he was half-grateful when the darkness of his mind rose up to erase the darkness he was lost in._

_Papa would have been disappointed._

_He had no time to wonder what Koschei would think as he fell into the black, his body struggling to maintain him, even as his hearts slowed another few beats._

_Theta Sigma was dying._


	2. Chapter 2

**~Part Two~**

Jack Jumped to where the signal _said_ it was (weak to the point of non-existence, but supposedly _there_) and found himself surround by darkness. He didn't mean 'darkness' in the sense most people thought of when they thought of darkness; no, this was pure and utter _lack of light_.

The air was thin – so thin he found his heart pounding and had to remind himself to take slow shallow breaths within seconds of being in this forsaken place. He could feel that deep primitive need to freak the fuck out following (closely) on the (obvious) observation of the lack of anything but Dark and Hard-to-Breathe. He was sure he had been to worse places in his time as an Agent – but he was hard pressed to come up with anything.

"Must've been wiped if I had been," he muttered, trying to get a sense (any sense) of his surroundings before he moved an inch in any one direction. The Doctor could very well be here (wherever 'here' was) and he didn't want to go blundering about until he was sure he wasn't going to step on him or lose his path.

That was going to be easier said than done.

First off – light.

Muttering thanks to whatever deity might be listening that he had fully upgraded and repaired the Manipulator before this little trip to no man's land (aka 'vacation'), he entered the commands for full beam, torchlight – frowning at how hard it was to even see his wrist activator (which automatically lit up when light dropped to a certain wattage) in the pervasive darkness. That same primitive chord deep in his psyche tried to tell him the darkness was Alive, but he batted the thought away with a shrug of his shoulders; though he used the idea (silly and superstitious as it was) to keep him alert.

Just in case.

Within a few seconds he had light (albeit precious little) and he cursed to himself in Basic at the feeble excuse for it. He found had to do his cursing internally though, screwing him out of the satisfaction of hearing it press against his ears. Seemed the longer he was here, the harder it was to breathe – so even talking to himself (a habit he had been unable to break for centuries) was out.

'_Better make this quick, then._'

He swept the sickly-looking beam around him in an arc, toggling the sensors so it would give him life-signs of anything the light hit upon. The sensors were slow to react to the command and he anxiously chewed his lip, wondering what in damnation could be causing his Manipulator to act up just when he (when the _Doctor_) needed it most. As far as he knew, Murphy hadn't reached the already godforsaken, yet.

'_Come on, come on, Doctor – where _are_ you?_'

He forced himself to slow down as he did his second 360 sweep, realizing the primitive fear was driving him to move faster – and breathe harder. It wouldn't do him (or the Doctor) any good if he lost all his bearings _and_his air – resulting in a piss poor rescue attempt that would land them both dead. Or at least, the Doctor dead and him waiting the gods know how long before someone swung by this heap of space junk to find him in the dark.

He wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy.

The second sweep yielded a faint blip on the monitor – but he didn't know if it was the Manipulator misbehaving further, or an actual life-sign. He slowly turned in place, trying to pinpoint the signal – and almost tripped over something at his feet. Something that was more solid than the dirt kicking up over the toes of his boots – and yet wasn't moving.

When Jack pointed the beam down at his feet, the transmission got stronger – but not by much. Unfortunately, whatever – or whoever – this was, didn't seem to have the sonic screwdriver on them, as the V.M. would have picked up on the tech immediately.

'_Shit_.'

Oh well, no hope for it. Had to get the poor fucker out of here, whoever they were. This place didn't seem to be too good for one's overall health and longevity. And maybe when they were feeling stronger, he could get them to tell him where the Doctor was (a faint hope, but there).

Now that he had a location, he popped a flare, hoping the flash of light would give him a face to go with the motionless lump of body at his feet. Maybe he had the Doctor after all and he was just short his screwdriver. He doubted it (how else would the man send a signal for help?) but if he had a Companion, he might have given _them_the screwdriver.

Which would mean he'd have to spend longer in this hell-hole, looking for someone dying – if they weren't dead already – from lack of oxygen.

'_Patience, Jack, one thing at a time_.'

He jammed the flare into the loose packing of dirt, pausing only to notice a thick pile of it covering the person's (he could confirm it was a person) feet and lower legs – whoever it was twisted in a position that told him they had attempted to climb out, but were thwarted by the shaky texture of the surrounding walls.

He looked up and could barely see dim starlight above, the light more of a hint than a promise – and he concluded the poor bastard must have tried to use that to navigate their way up; after having fallen several feet to where they were now. The hole above wasn't very big, which means they might have actually fallen _through_ the earth before being buried in it during their feeble efforts to get out of this dark prison. If he hadn't been looking directly at it, he would never have known there even _was_a hole above him.

He did a quick scan of the being's life-signs (smacking at the Manipulator as it fuzzed and tried to blip out halfway through the scanning process) and was severely shocked and worried at how little life there was to be had. The heart beat was so minimal as to be non-existent and the person's (man, he could see he was a male and human by the look of it) respiration was so shallow they might well stop breathing at any moment.

Finding the Doctor was going to be tricky – but he was sure the Time-Lord wouldn't begrudge him saving this guy; might even give him a hug for old times' sake as the man he was looking at just might be a Companion. Hell, the Doctor might not even _be_in this place – but could be trying to find his way here. So next step – find the TARDIS. Hopefully the flare would lead him back to the man's location.

Curious (and sure the few seconds wouldn't make a difference) he confirmed the lack of serious injuries (a dad-blamed miracle if there ever was one) and slowly turned the man over onto his back, worried that the movement hadn't seemed to wake him; and he was definitely a him. He was young – _really_young by Jack's standards, which wasn't saying much if you counted his years – but he found he had to fight to keep disapproval from rising in his heart. This poor fucker was easily as young as Rose had been – maybe even younger (hard to tell in this lack of light)…and here he had thought the Time-Lord had learned his lesson.

Further investigation showed the man (who wasn't hard on the eyes by any stretch) dressed in period clothing of the late thirties, early forties – and Jack had to grit his teeth to keep from cursing out loud and wasting oxygen. Not only had the Doctor picked up a young pup, but he had snatched him out of a time-frame where even _crank-operated telephones_were considered new-fangled and high-tech.

Fucking great.

At least he was unconscious. It kept him alive (taking in less oxygen) and it kept Jack from having to explain the Manipulator (and boy, he didn't envy the Doctor trying to explain the TARDIS to this young man) and how it worked while he got him the help he needed.

While securing the man's coat over his torso to keep him warmer than he seemed at the moment (his temperature registering at least 10 degrees below normal) he noted with approval the deep red suspenders that went with the reddish bowtie at his throat.

Handsome _and_dapper. The Doctor sure knew how to pick 'em – but damned if he ever noticed; which meant this guy was special, not just cute. Jack set the V.M. to find the TARDIS herself, musing on just what set this young man from an earlier time apart from his fellows.

And what made him special enough to have a sonic screw-driver in his possession.

Jack didn't recognize the design, but he recognized the basic shape of the Doctor's favorite tool of choice. The fact that this fella had it didn't bode well, no matter which way you sliced it. It was made worse by the (seeming) fact that the device (to all appearances) was dead. The Manipulator didn't even register the thing as anything other than a sophisticated hunk of metal – but he was sure his V.M. had followed whatever readings it had sent out straight to the man's location.

So it either died because its juice ran out (nigh impossible) the TARDIS was dead (also nigh impossible) or whatever was messing with his Manipulator had also destroyed the screwdriver. In which case, the faster he found the TARDIS and the Doctor and got this man to the med-bay _in_the TARDIS, the better. His Manipulator (funnily enough) wasn't as intricate as the sonic – so that may be what was currently saving his bacon. But if he didn't get a move on, he had a nasty feeling that he would be in the same state the young man at his feet was currently in. Which would do neither of them any good.

'_Hope you're one of the good guys,_' Jack thought grimly, knowing full well that this man (despite all appearances) could well put him and the Doctor in danger, if he hadn't already done so to the still-missing Time-Lord. '_Cause if not, you and I are gonna go a few rounds before I get answers out of you._'

With no other readings (like the close resonance of an active sonic) to interfere, the V.M. latched onto the thin thread of the TARDIS' signature, the signal wavering and strengthening at oddly timed intervals. He tried to pin down what he thought was the pattern and counted out the beats before hitting Transfer/Jump Coordinate, holding his breath the whole time. If the sonic had died down here, this was a risk that could very well kill him and the young man both – dumping him in the In-Between and leaving the human to while away oblivion in the darkness. He just had to hope the signal itself was weak because of the atmosphere – and not because the TARDIS was on the other side of this rock/asteroid/planet.

'_Hope for the best,_ he thought as the Vortex closed around him, the V.M. fizzing and sparking the whole while. '_And expect -_'

" – the worst?"

According to his monitor he hadn't Jumped but maybe 25 feet all told – did he lose the signature?

The large Presence at his back and the two ticks he turned to the left told him otherwise, the warm and inviting shadow of the TARDIS more welcome than even the dire situation could explain. Seeing Her, big as life and twice as beautiful…it was like coming home.

"Hello, Old Girl," Jack murmured reverently, running unsteady fingers down the seam of Her door-panels. "Did'ja miss me?"

He almost expected Her to hum Her assent to his query and was half-disappointed when he didn't get one…then he noticed Her window-panels were dark.

Actually, everything about Her was shrouded in darkness – like She had just given up the ghost. And there was no way in hell Jack Harkness would believe that. Something more serious than the Doctor being missing was going on here.

He took a careful step back (minding the shakiness of the ground beneath his feet) and looked up at her beacon-light; it too (like her panel-windows) was dark and silent, almost like She wasn't in there anymore.

Impossible.

He started to lean into her door and swipe a hand down his face, but was stopped short when the door gave, swinging open with a near-silent creak that set all the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. The TARDIS was always, _always_ locked – the Doctor had an automatic lock that prevent anyone from getting in – and short of a nuclear bomb, (unless you had a key, or the Doctor there to _provide_a way in), there was no way you would ever see the inside of his marvelous Machine.

And yet here he was, keyless and Doctor-less, standing in the open threshold of one of the most secure pieces of technology the Universe had never seen.

If everything hadn't felt wrong and terrible about this place before – it certainly did now.

He just stood there, gawping for a moment at the dark interior (even more chill inducing than her silent, unlit beacon), before hastily rushing inside, closing the door carefully behind him. He had to switch back on his torchlight (which had shut itself off for his Jump) and the beam was more feeble than before, forcing him to rush as he tried to find the main console – which (last he knew of) was at the end of the ramp that no longer seemed to be there.

Flabbergasted (and more than a little terrified at this point), Jack slowly shuffled forward, using the weak light to navigate across the open expanse of flooring to a set of steps. The interior felt too _big_ - and he entertained a mild fancy (for a mere moment) of wandering endlessly in the dimensional eternity of the TARDIS herself; forever walking and never reaching the end of anything. So his imagination was a little relieved when the light fell on the first stair (even though this step looked nothing like the set of stairs off to the right of the 'bridge' that had had remembered so well). He cautiously navigated the five steps until he encountered what _appeared_to be a console – though nothing (once again) like the console he so well remembered.

Nervously, he stretched a hand out and stroked the edge of the Machine's control cluster, once again staggering slightly when the lighting came on, though dimmed – as though the Old Girl was tired and conserving energy. Depending on how long She had been here, She might very well have been doing just that.

He looked around for anything, _anything_familiar – but the vast array of switches, toggles and levers just left him confused and feeling completely out of his depth. He blinked owlishly at the Rotor and slowly walked around the console, trying to get his bearings when his V.M. chose that moment to bottom out altogether. It made a strange popping noise, sparks flying out of the monitor and he panicked; pawing at his wrist strap until it came off, hitting the (glass?) flooring with a mild 'thunk' and a high-pitched whining noise before the smell of ozone and burnt circuits assailed his nostrils.

Well. There went the way home…Gwen was definitely going to kill him for this.

"Dammit," he muttered, unsure of what to do next as he stood inside an unfamiliar TARDIS setting, his only way home (or finding the Doctor, or doing anything remotely useful) no more than a plastic and metal paperweight at his feet. He wished for a split moment that he had never thought to answer that signal, but threw the idea off a second later with mild shame – the thousand and one ways the Doctor had saved him flickering through his head (even as he blatantly ignored how the very same man abandoned him so many, many years ago).

He shook himself vigorously and focused on the strange console once more, realizing all his dilly-dallying was costing that young man out there precious life. If he could only get the TARDIS _to_him and back again –

Which was originally what he was going to use the V.M. for once he had confirmed the TARDIS' location; which happened to be five feet from the man-shaped hole he had Jumped out of. If there was any small mercy, the Manipulator had worked long enough to get him out – but he'd never get it fixed in time to get him back _in_. And with the TARDIS on low power, no Doctor in sight and no way of actually _flying_her with low power and no Doctor in sight, the man's chances were getting slimmer back the second.

And he was doubly helpless now as well as frustrated. Jack didn't do either very well – a helpless and frustrated Jack led to dangerous thoughts and stupid moves – so he stopped to take several calming breaths; the stray notion that he could breathe so easily within the TARDIS' atmospheric bubble, and the youngster below them couldn't get two sips of air for every five spurred him into settling his mind and thinking it through.

He turned away from the strange control cluster and made his way down another set of stairs, finding himself at the Rotor-housing/engine control area where (inexplicably) a swing sat (for easy navigation and maintenance?), complete with a wonky floor that had him looking at his own feet more than he'd like. There were large holes scattered in an odd pattern down below (obviously Her new ventilation system) but no storage units or anything of use to him that would get that young man out.

He prowled restlessly around the new environs, noting the two exits at the bottom which led to the deeper parts of the TARDIS and (above him) yet another set of stairs which also seemed to lead only to the corridors of the ship. He walked past the alcove twice before he registered it _was_an alcove and darted into it, noticing with relief the two chests that sat in plain sight (if one knew where to look). He dug through one that seemed to consist mostly of blankets (three of them had holes in the middle of them, oddly enough) and another chest filled with…suspenders and bowties.

He blinked in stunned surprise, a giggle escaping him before he could stop it. So the Doctor made sure his Companions had blankets and extra accessories in case they should need it. Splendid! He stifled another laugh and wondered if the chest full of suspenders and bowties was a practical joke on the part of the young fella in the hole; just to mess with the Doctor. He had been a Companion himself once – practical jokes and gags were quite common in the TARDIS - a way to easy the monotony of Vortex traveling and a feel-good way to relieve pressure after a heavy day of saving the Universe.

But this wasn't the time for jokes.

If he had been a good Boy Scout and brought his knife with him, he could have cut the blankets into strips and knotted them together to make a rope – but his V.M. did everything conceivable, so he'd left his Boy Scout ways at home. This would teach him to depend so much on the damned thing.

So this left him with…a box full of suspenders.

He could have tried to search the TARDIS for a rope, but as far as he could see, there was no lighting in the corridors – all power being routed to the main control room (as She did only in cases of extreme emergency). He _could_search in the dark, or try to find a torch first – but he had already wasted precious time – and the longer he stalled the more likely it would be the man would die. He had no idea where the Doctor could possibly be, but he'd have to save searching for him for a little later. First he had to get that young man on board and try to find a way to route power to the med-bay so he could get him well again – then he could search for the missing Time-Lord and demand an explanation for why his Companion was currently breathing no-air in the middle of a hole in the ground.

Hopefully the Doctor wasn't injured or otherwise incapacitated himself – but he'd have to save that worry for later. Maybe the man could tell him what happened, help him piece together the puzzle so he could rescue everyone and get the Doctor to take them all home.

He had carefully knotted the straps of several pairs of suspenders together, giving the elastic ends a quick jerk every time to tighten them down, make it easier for them to bear weight without coming apart. Once he had a 'rope' of about thirty feet he stopped, inspecting the make-shift climbing apparatus with a mix of pride and intrepidation. It had taken about eight sets of braces to get what approximated thirty feet – and to ensure it would hold he had tied the two 'front straps' to the two 'back straps' of each pair, giving the elasticized rope an almost chained-loop look. Honestly, he was hoping it would serve as a rope/bungie cord, allowing give when he needed it and tightening when he no longer needed slack – but the only way to test it was to use it. And he had a vague idea of where he was going to tie the anchor knot – he just had to hope that the door didn't lock and leave them both gasping against the side of the TARDIS with no way in.

"Leaving a lot to Providence here," he muttered, but launched back to his feet anyway, gathering his bracer-rope as he went.

He took one more look around the new console room and thought about how pretty it was and what a shame that he didn't have time to enjoy it more. He was hoping he could get longer than five minutes to look her over when the Doctor was back inside; that he wouldn't find himself back home again faster than he could blink without so much as a by-your-leave when he found the errant Time-Lord (which was more of a possibility than he liked to admit). But being kicked to the curb (again) would be worth it when everyone was back (safe and sound) where they belonged – the TARDIS felt too lonely like this. She needed Her people to be Herself – and he was hoping to give that to Her.

He paused at the door, letting his fingers drift over the blue paneling, stroking Her familiar lines before tying an anchor knot to Her front handle, letting his 'rope' play out on the ground before closing Her door again with a heart-stopping click.

"Just please," he whispered sadly. "Let me in again – if only to get this fella back to safety. Then I promise I'll find the Doctor – I'll find him and get him back to you."

He thought he heard a wistful hum, but wrote it off as too much imagination, his attention turning back to the poor bastard at the bottom of the hole. There were too many 'maybes' and 'mights' in this plan for his liking – but with the way the Universe liked to run things, when weren't there only 'mights' and 'maybes'?

"Gotta make the best of it," he murmured to himself, taking a small breath of the thin air as he applied his weight to the rope, leaning back to make sure it would hold as he descended into the Dark.

Searching the TARDIS had (surprisingly) only taken five minutes (as far as he could gather) and making the suspender-rope had taken only three. Rescuing the man might take longer than getting the implements together to rescue him _with_and Jack could only hope he had that time to spare.

'_If he isn't dead already._'

Jack didn't waste the energy (or oxygen) to tell that little voice to go stuff it. Instead, he concentrated on carefully easing himself back into the hole, praying his luck would hold further and he wouldn't landed on the young man at the bottom. He had to believe the make-shift rope would hold. He was too committed to turn back – now he just had to make sure he didn't injure or kill the person he was trying to rescue.

He was focused so much on being careful (not shifting too much earth, watching where he placed his feet as he descended), he didn't have time to notice how much worse the Dark was than before until he was three quarters of the way in. It felt…thicker than before – almost malevolent; and the air was so thin he had to actively stop himself from gasping, which would only have led to him passing out from panic and no oxygen. He took steady, even breaths like they would teach in Lamaze (and yes, he had taken that particular course) finding it didn't do much for the light-headedness or creeping terror – but it kept enough oxygen in his lungs to keep him functioning all the way to the bottom.

Jack narrowly missed the young Companion when he touched down (the flare beside the man all but useless now), soft ground shifting beneath his shoes as the Captain tried to maintain balance, grit and debris raining down from above him. He just kept hoping that the rope wouldn't dig too much earth out (putting the TARDIS in jeopardy on the way up) and squatted down to feel around him for the youngster, his fingers landing immediately on the rough tweed fabric of the human's jacket. He assessed where the man's neck would be and felt for a pulse, more relieved than he should have been when he located one – though it was slow and thready, far too slow and weak for him to last much longer, really. All Jack could hope to do was get him up to the safety of the Police Box and with the slimmest chance he could resuscitate him if he coded on the way up.

What he was about to do would have been damned near impossible, even if there had been an ample supply of oxygenated atmosphere, but he had gotten this far – so doubts and recriminations would only keep him from his main goal; he firmly put all of the 'maybes' and 'impossibles' out of his head as he tied the end of his 'rope' around the man's body, looping it around his upper torso and then his legs before tying it back into itself. That would keep him safe enough if either of them fell.

Now came the hard part.

He lifted the unconscious man to his feet, propping him against the earth-wall, wondering exactly how he was going to get enough rope around himself (to serve as an anchor) while he hauled them both out. In the end, he kept up with making this whole rescue as weird as possible by gripping the young man to him and spinning counter-clockwise one time before propping him back against the wall, one hand holding him in place as he slackened the loop so he could keep the man over one shoulder while climbing out.

And the air was almost non-existent by this point. Once or twice he had to pause and _actively_ remember what he was doing before he continued – this alone spurring him into action a little faster than he would have liked. Jack's sense of time was fraying as well – he was no longer sure how long he had been preparing them for this climb. But in the end, tenacity won out over confusion and he carefully bent down, getting the human in a loose hold over his shoulder. One more tug on the line to make sure they were both secure and the Captain began his climb, bending his will to the monumental task of trying to breathe, stay upright and haul the youngster (who was way heavier than he looked, though somehow, _lighter_than dead-weight should be) back to the less-thin-air above.

He again lost track of time as he hauled them up, hand over hand, slow and steady – fighting to maintain the man's balance and his own; planting each foot deep into the wall as he went, knowing that any mishap would wind them both back down in the hole with no way out. There was no chance of Jack garnering enough strength to do this twice, macho bullshit aside. He was only ten feet up and already layered in sweat – limbs shaking from effort and too little oxygen, vision swimming alarmingly at each inch he gained.

He allowed tunnel-vision to overtake him, letting the mindless mechanics of gathering rope, pulling and resetting his feet for the next haul be his counter – so he was mildly surprised when the top of the TARDIS came into view. He stopped the startle reflex before it could undo all of his hard work, his reactions sluggish enough his brain could dart ahead of itself, even though _thinking_was like wading hip-deep in muck.

Jack kept the Old Girl in his sights, internally celebrating each new glimpse of Her as She slowly came into full view. As he neared the top, he found himself obsessively checking his precious cargo – as though Fate was just waiting for the right moment to dump him back to the depths, tumbling the Captain after him. This made the journey that much harder and he had to force his thoughts away from such a terrifying idea – or he just might make it happen.

The last few minutes of the climb were the longest – the TARDIS in sight, stars wheeling dimly over their heads; both so close and yet so far it made him even dizzier than before at the prospect that they just might make it. He braced internally for the young man to stop breathing (any time now, he would – that was just how things went) but the human seemed to stubbornly soldier on, though his gasps for air were further and further apart the higher they climbed. It took everything Jack had to not gasp airlessly in the thin atmosphere once they were nearer to the top – and he found he almost missed the mindless focus he'd had when they were further down – which seemed to help control his breathing as well as his mechanical crawl up the side of the hole.

Finally he reached the top, but he kept tight hold of the rope, (young human secure over his shoulder) until he reached the TARDIS' doors, braced for the final joke of not being able to get in (as he still firmly believed Murphy and his Law had to move into play at some point in time). He was surprised, overjoyed and none too willing to look that old gift horse in the mouth when not only did they reach Her doors moderately unscathed – but She opened just as easily as She had when Jack had leaned against Her (centuries) less than forty-five minutes before.

He had no air with which to thank Her properly, every muscle in his overtaxed body screaming in protest as he staggered through door, banging his shoulder on the frame and the man's head against the front panel (wincing in apology), before he collapsed bonelessly inside. He managed to get in one last save by smacking a hand down before the human's head connected with the floor, (downstairs brain noting just how soft that shag of hair _was_), his fingers registering how hard the unconscious man hit; knuckles singing angrily as they were slammed against the floor.

And still the guy didn't move, not even so much as _flinch_, as his body collided gracelessly with the TARDIS' flooring; though he seemed to be breathing steadier. Jack made note of that fact with relief, his whole body screaming for a rest even as he tried to force it to further action – the medbay his goal, his touchdown and the last conscious thought before he met the floor himself, his overtaxed system too strained to keep him upright much longer. He went down a little more gracefully than the Doctor's Companion (but only just), bracing himself for impact even as he struggled to mentally define what he was seeing – before he blinked and saw no more.


	3. Chapter 3

**~Part Three~**

Jack came to with a start, berating himself for not fighting off the (manly) faint that had taken him away from the universe at large for...at least ten minutes by his calculations; his first 'real' waking thought being the young man he had dragged inside and how he must be dead by now. And long enough that Jack would be unable to resuscitate him, even if the TARDIS has been fully functional and ready to go (which She most definitely wasn't).

The next thought (straight on the heels of the first) was that the TARDIS had been dark again (fully dark) when he had entered Her (just like the first time) – but She certainly wasn't now. Somehow, She was brighter than before, though still silent and seemingly unresponsive to their presence. He allowed himself only a quick scan of the interior (fully twice as large as the previous console room and significantly brighter in so many ways) before turning back to the main reason for all that inhuman effort and fainting (that he would never admit to even if threatened with bodily harm).

Twisting to his left he found the young human sprawled in the same position he had (dropped) left him in, his pallor only slightly better than previously observed, but only just. At least he was breathing (much to Jack's astonishment and relief), though far too shallow and rapidly for the Captain's liking. Fuck knows what he had been exposed to down there – or for how long.

Every bone in Jack's body still ached and throbbed, the deprivation of oxygen, followed by the sudden influx of breathable, normal air leaving him dizzy and shaky in the worst way. He almost couldn't decide which he detested more – having no air or having too much. All he knew was that being buried alive had been bad, but somehow this had been worse. At least while buried alive he knew what was coming: no air, another death and another 'waking' a few hours later. No, it wasn't the most fun ever way to die, but the ground respected the rules. Where-ever he and this young man were stranded, there was no respect of basic planetoid rules.

It was all well and good to have thin (to no air) and a touch of darkness; but he had come away from this little fuckaroo still utterly convinced that the rock they were currently sitting on had a sentient and utterly malevolent intent. That it had given them just enough air to get into trouble, then siphoned it slowly away while cramming their heads with confusion and hallucinations.

Jack was sure the man currently prone on the TARDIS floor would testify to the same, if he lived long enough to speak about anything. He wondered (as he pulled the human into a loose fireman's carry, back and arms protesting the whole way) if the Doctor had encountered more of the same. If he was lost out there, in that evil miasma masquerading as a planet or moon, slowly dying from the lack of oxygen and/or starvation (depending on how long he and this young fella had been here). It was perfectly plausible for the Doctor to have wandered off – and for his Companion to give him a day or so leeway before following out of sheer exasperation and worry.

Gods know he had done it often enough himself.

"Those...were the days," the Captain gasped, ignoring the screeching thrum of every muscle he owned as they protest the further abuse he was subjecting them to; getting carefully to his feet with the precious human life firmly anchored onto his tired and rubbery-feeling shoulders. He noted (absently) how awfully light this youngster was for being essentially dead-weight, and filed the curious information to the back of his mind for later pondering -

Such as when he had this poor bastard firmly ensconced in the medical bay, the Doctor in the console room where he belonged, and the Old Girl away from this insufferable hellhole (and back in the depths of space), Vortex-surfing where _She_belonged.

He thought he felt a weak fluttering against the edges of his mind and realized it was the TARDIS' tired attempt to comfort, assess, reassure and thank him all at once. He smiled softly, tilting his head so he could whisper the 'thank you' he had meant to say when he had first arrived with the young man in tow. She hummed in response and before he could ask the obvious (where the medical bay was) She lit the roundels near the flight of stairs leading upwards, Her interior wheezing with effort as he staggered up the steps with his fragile bundle.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," he panted, vowing to at least get a glass of water before dashing off after the missing Doctor. "I'll find him and get him back to you safe and sound."

She made a deep groaning noise that hummed up through the soles of his feet (almost making him drop the man across his shoulders), who picked (of course) just that exact second to move; throwing Jack off balance and forcing him to twist awkwardly and deposit him on the landing above the stairs with a bit more harshness than he intended.

Then three things happened all at the same time.

The TARDIS let out an earth-shattering groan that seemed to shake Her whole structure, lights flickering wildly before rising to an almost stupefying radiance, the glow so bright his eyes felt like they were being burned out of his skull. He fell backwards on his ass, blinking back tears in the sudden blinding explosion of light, his ears almost _thrumming_with pressure as the TARDIS keened to Herself in a deep (yet somehow high-pitched) moan of sound before the third (and most startling thing) happened.

The man above him sat up so fast his spine cracked (which Jack felt in his own bones more than heard), letting out an answering wail that left Jack breathless and gasping on the steps. The TARDIS' lightening flash and (warning? Was that a warning?) bell-like howl last a mere moment – but it almost succeeded in drowning out the young man's cries, which (as his ears unblocked and started to register sound instead of just hammering rings), seemed to go on forever. What must have been less than one minute seemed to stretch to an eternity before snapping back to real-time; the whole crazy incident ending with the subsequent relapse of the (human?) back to silence and loss of consciousness.

The deafening quiet was infinitely more eerie and frightening (in so many ways), than even the Hole had been. All Jack got from the cataclysm of noise issuing from the youngster's throat was a deep ache in his mind, like something had been tugged loose and then shoved hastily back into place, with no attention paid to where or how that piece fit back in. The closest thing he could attribute the noise to was the (fleeting) fragment of memory left over from his childhood on Boe, when his mother described the Voice of Angels – and how they could stagger and bend a human mind.

It had been like a melody, a song tilting in the wind of the Vortex – and yet it was like it had wrapped itself physically around him and shook him. It took more than a few seconds to get his bearings again, and more than a few to dare to reach for the young human again, awed and shaken by his experience (which was saying a lot when stacked with the whole of his experiences over the years). It would figure the Doctor would get himself a damned psychic after all this time, but if the TARDIS was trying to tell him something, it was lost amongst the dazzling display of light and sound; Jack's brains too tired and rattled from the several days of no sleep and monkeying around in a damned near vacuum, to get to the man who was currently sacked out across the landing of the (second? third?), floor leading to the corridors and presumably the med-bay. He shook himself, blinking back the drying crust of tears as his hand landed on the guy's boot, balancing himself as he hauled back to his knees; only half-surprised that he was sitting flat on his ass on the fourth stair from the top. It was actually a damned miracle that he hadn't fallen ass over tea-kettle all the way to the bottom after the shock (more like series of), he had been given – and he wasn't just referring to the last five minutes either.

"Shit, I need to find the Doctor," he muttered, almost half-crying with the idea of mustering up enough energy to get this man to a bed in the medical unit; much less foraying back out into the flat, airless dark beyond the TARDIS doors. "He'll...he'll know what to do."

'_Come on, you had your ten minute nap, Harkness! Time to get the lead out. It's a damned miracle this asshole has survived this damned long._'

Jack was just bending to gather the young man up again and start the aimless trek in search of first aid (and maybe some Tylenol for himself – no aspirin on board this Ship), when the human jerked in his grasp, muttering something unintelligible in that sing-song language that almost made Jack's ears feel like they were being folded in on themselves even as (for some unknown reason), it made his heart feel warmer and heavier in his chest. The only word he could pluck out of all of the musical noise was the (name?) 'Koschei' and the world fell silent again.

He cradled the (so very, very fragile) body to him, unmindful of the dirt and debris they had now scattered liberally over the TARDIS, pressing an almost unconscious kiss to the man's forehead – a gesture which was more comforting for himself than it was for the (obviously) unwell youngling in his arms. He registered a faint tingling in his lips, a half-familiar smell (stardust) assaulting his nose before all hell attempted to break loose.

No sooner had he brushed his lips across the too pale, dusty flesh of the man's forehead (mind chattering at him that he was wasting time with all this nonsense), when the body wrapped in his arms came alive again, but with much more strength than he anticipated. Jack grappled frantically with him, ever aware of the steps at their feet (and how dangerous a fall would be to the both of them at this point), dancing to keep them both clear of the staircase, while keeping the bucking torso tightly wrapped up so the man couldn't hurt himself.

Instinct kicked in, making his grip simultaneously gentle, yet firm as he tried to soothe the frightened youngster, hushing him in hurried but calm rumbles. The man responded with breathless, cracked tones of pure fear, trying to push Jack away with a strength that bordered on insanity; forcing the Captain to stagger them further into the corridor entrance or sail over the railing to the main floor below. This would only have resulted in two dead men – all search for the Doctor further delayed while his body took its sweet time repairing itself.

By then, the man he was wrestling with for control would have been long gone and the Doctor very well on the way himself because of Jack's clumsy, half-assed attempts at search and rescue. Jack came to a decision and though he almost hated himself for it, he really had no choice. He was running out of time and this was a foolish waste of energy and patience.

He spun the man with one hand, knocking him off balance before tackling him to a corridor wall, jamming his right arm across the human's chest – effectively pinning him and taking away his ability to hurt himself or Jack in the process. The man barked airlessly in surprise, but ceased struggling, freezing against the wall while blinking in confusion at Jack, his eyes dazed (like he had taken a hammer blow to the head), and more than a little afraid. That hurt – the look of fear on that too young face; Jack had a feeling this guy wasn't afraid of much, so to have that look leveled at him like he was Satan and all his imps combined –

"Hi," Jack started, still breathless from the semi-fight a few seconds before. "Just stay calm, don't be afraid, okay? My name is –"

"Captain Jack Harkness," the man answered, eyes hooded and still wary, as though he still wasn't sure of his surroundings. "Jack."

"Yeah," Jack grinned, surprised but pleasantly so. Obviously the Doctor still talked about him. Well…that was something there. "Please to meet you! Now, maybe you can tell me –"

"Am I dying?" The man asked, interrupting him for the second time. He seemed to be talking mostly to himself at first, but then his eyes locked on the Captain's, his glance almost accusatory. "Are you here to escort me beyond Rassilion's Veil? Are you…are you my Assessor?"

Flabbergasted didn't quite cover Jack's mental state right then. His thoughts were sparking, but nothing intelligible was rising to tongue – all ability to process shorting out as he grasped the _basic_meaning of the questions being posed to him (but really nothing that made sense). The young human still looked confused and shaken, leaning into Jack's grip, gasping like he had run a marathon; Jack's arm across his chest seeming to be the only thing holding him upright at the moment. He had dark rings under his eyes – a deep brown that indicated shock and his lips were tinged a dusty shade of blue, even in the oxygenated atmosphere.

"We need to get you to the med-bay, my friend, you really don't look so good," Jack finally said, relieved that his brain finally came up with something reasonably intelligent to return with, the major thinking portions of it choosing to ignore the fella's strange questions in favor of proposing action. "I think a nice scan, some meds, bed rest and a cup of tea might just be what the doctor –"

"I'm sorry," the young man sighed and his eyes rolled up in his head as he started seizing violently against Jack's arm. It took all of the Captain's strength to hold him against the wall as he jerked and shook – but he almost let go when he felt the double thud of two hearts against his forearm. He froze in stunned wonder before his brain kicked into gear –

'_Mind blown twice in under two minutes – who else can it be?_'

– as the man (the Doctor's) head slammed once, twice against the corridor wall, his body twisting and bucking against the Captain's hold. Thin rills of blood streamed out of the corners of his contorted mouth, as his teeth sheering cleanly through his bottom lip, hearts triple timing against his ribs before they ceased beating at all. Jack snapping out of his reverie when they thumped twice more (hard enough to come out of his chest) then stilled, the Time-Lord going limp in his hold.

"The fuck you _don't_!" Jack barked, moving before he could even think of doing so, knowing that grabbing someone who's just had a seizure and running like your ass was on fire and your head was catching wasn't the _grandest_idea ever; but there was no time to stop and assess what was right and proper when the man you had been looking for had literally just died right in front of you.

The TARDIS hummed and churned frantically at him, lighting the way to the med bay in desperate flashes of orange and white, the door looming over him as he almost skidded past it. He spun on one heel, clutching the Doctor closer to his chest as he kicked the door open, overheads flickering to life as he laid him on the nearest bed, the scanner moving into place before the Time-Lord was even fully settled. Seemed the TARDIS was just as freaked out as Jack was, Her tired engines pushing to run the machines needed to resuscitate and fix Her pilot, sparks flying as whole systems (offline due to low power) screamed back to working order.

Jack watched anxiously as one machine finished running the diagnostic before folding back into the ceiling to only be replaced by another machine that injected something into the Doctor's arm before zapping him with (what looked like) pure electricity to both hearts, the machine screeching to itself in computer language before zapping him again. This time the Doctor's upper body clenched in response, a choked gasp pushing past his lips before he started breathing (really breathing) again.

Jack thought he would cry from sheer relief. The Doctor had been a such constant in his (so _very_long) life, it was inconceivable for him to not be there. The fact that he had been dying, unidentified, unknown in the corridor of his Ship right before Jack's eyes…there was no way to describe the horror and loss that had torn at the Captain's heart. He was still shaking in the aftermath of that terrible voided feeling, the taste of blood and bile a bitter chide on the back of his tongue.

'_I could have lost him. I could have gone wandering off, looking for the Doctor and _leaving_ him in that hole. He could have died. He could have – _' his brain didn't allow him to complete the thought, instinct having him bending over the nearest trash-bin to vomit himself empty, the next few minutes completely tied up in expelling the last three weeks worth of food and drink.

He could feel the TARDIS' mild push at the edges of his mind and mentally patted back at Her, trying to fend Her off and (clumsily) cling to Her all at the same time. She seemed distracted in his head, Her nudges and pokes urgent, but sympathetic. She understood he was shocked senseless, that he was bone tired and had just tossed up all of his insides. She knew he wanted to stay right where he was too – but She obviously needed something from him and he wasn't going to do the Doctor (or the Old Girl) any good by standing here, wringing his hands over his unconscious body.

He spat twice into the garbage can (the offensive odor almost setting him off again) before backing away, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.

'_And me with no toothbrush_,' he thought humorlessly.

He straightened up and looked over at the Doctor's unmoving form, machines half obscuring him as they double-timed through their work to repair him as best as they could. He was obviously no help here – if anything, he was likely in the way. The best thing he could do was try to find the main console room again and well…try to figure out _something_. They needed to get off this rock, they needed to do it yesterday. He had no idea how long the TARDIS had been here, but the fact that She seemed so low on power meant She had been here for quite awhile – and if he didn't want Her to go the way of the sonic and his Vortex Manipulator he'd better cobble together a plan and quick.

He was turning to leave (refusing to look at the Doctor again or his resolve would waver), when he spied the (new?) sonic screwdriver on the floor, the crystal inside it cracked and singed a deep black. He didn't know why he did it, but scooping it up and shoving it into his pocket seemed a damn good idea, so he did just that; making his way back out to the corridor and following the lights back to the console room, grateful that She lit the way as he hadn't been paying much attention to the twists and turns as he ran with the Doctor in his arms.

It wasn't that long of a walk back, but he would have gotten lost if he had tried to do this by himself, so he silently thanked her as he saw the (un) familiar set of stairs leading to her control hub, mildly disturbed as the lights in the corridor winked out behind him with a tired hum. The emergency lights (at least, that's what he assumed they were) shone whitely above the Rotor and he bee-lined for it, leaning a little on the rail as he made his way down; knees watery and uncooperative as they protested the massive amount of stress they had been put through in the last hour and a half.

'_Get over it, shit to do, Harkness._'

As he approached the console a narrow tube creaked its way slowly out from the center control above (was that the zig-zag plotter?) what looked like mustard and ketchup dispensers and with sudden inspiration Jack reached into his pocket and dug out the sonic, dropping it crystal first into the tube. The TARDIS wheezed Her approval and another panel popped out (a little faster this time) on the other side of the dispensers, just under the 'rail' that ran around the console and lights above it flashed impatiently – as if he was suppose to know what he had to do next.

"Don't know what you want, Old Girl," Jack muttered irritably. "I haven't got anything else in my pockets and –"

She wheezed again (sounding more than a little irritated herself), and he grumped his way over to the slot, stooping over to peer at it quizzically. What looked like a hand-print blipped on the smooth, coppery surface and Jack shrugged in response –

"How was I suppose to know?"

– before placing his left hand in the center of it, disconcerted that his hand fit perfectly over the warm metallic plate. The console lit up like a Christmas tree and he removed his hand (as if instructed to do so), watching with interest as the TARDIS roundels flashed in a series of complicated sequences, main engines purring like a huge cat as a hologram rippled to life on his left, the countenance a grim representation of the man dying (by degrees) above him somewhere.

"Activated Hologramatic Voice Interface. Emergency Protocal Alpha One. Companion Captain Jack Harkness. Please state the nature of the Emergency."

'_Ohhh, his voice is handsome, too…_'

"Stranded on unknown planetoid. Hostile environment, engines on low power – we need to relocate before all power drains due to atmospheric conditions outside the TARDIS."

"Scanning – please stand by." The hologram rapped out, pausing for a moment before turning to face Jack, his eyes just as vivid and green as the real Doctor's – highly disconcerting. "Confirmed hostile environment. Battery-cells almost depleted, standby for instructions to initiate Protocol Alpha-Sigma-Zeta One-One-Five."

"Wait – hold on. Battery cells almost _depleted_?"

"Affirmative."

"_How_?"

"Readings show main power drain over a period of two weeks, one day, eleven hours, twenty-two minutes and fifteen seconds."

"_What_?"

"Readings show –"

"Never mind, never mind," Jack gritted impatiently. "Harkness on standby for instructions on how to get the fuck out of here."

The hologram seemed to radiate disapproval, but dutifully mapped out a series of instructions as Jack took notes, half-glad that Gwen nagged him into carrying around a notebook to write things down in. Sometimes the littlest thing would slide right out of his mind (like the need to call for back up) and she threatened certain bits he was rather fond of unless he complied. Never thought it would actually help him though.

"Okay," Jack sighed when the Interface finally droned to a stop. "Got it – going to need help though, things have…_changed_a little around here since I last saw it."

"Affirmative. Active Status Upgrade – System Over-ride Initiated. Awaiting further instructions."

"Alright – here goes nothing," Jack muttered. He cleared his throat and squinted at the notes he had just written, finding what he needed half way down (as the TARDIS had seen fit to do most of the heavy lifting Herself). "Emergency Protocol Alpha-Sigma-Zeta One-One-Five point Three-One. Over-ride System Lock, Emergency Transport to new location. Scan for non-hostile environment , initiate Auto-Pilot Procedure Theta-Sigma Nine-Nine-Five."

"Understood," the Interface rumbled. "Pilot offline, Emergency Protocol instituted. Safety Mode initiated – rerouting all power to Main Control Room."

"Wait – what?" Jack barked, eyes scanning his notes frantically even as he realized that somehow the TARDIS (and the Interface) had tricked him. They had used him (as a recognized Companion) to override the safety systems – putting the Doctor's life in jeopardy in order to save them all. If the TARDIS hadn't done that…well, just being here was a drain to her systems. By the time the Doctor recovered, he would be left with a busted Ship and no way home for any of them. While Jack could appreciate why She had done it, he still wasn't wildly happy that She'd tricked him into it.

He felt an apologetic nudge along the edges of his consciousness and grudgingly soothed Her, sending feelings of forgiveness and relief Her way as She powered down with a liquid groan, every light flickering to life for a mere second before winking back out. Her engines quaked and whined to life beneath his feet as She gathered Herself for an emergency Vortex-Jump, the effort felt as much as heard; the lack of power evident in how long it took Her to cycle up for the intended Jump.

"It's alright," Jack sighed, petting her console soothingly as he followed the lights around the Rotor, flicking switches and pulling levers as She indicated, signals a mixture of taps against his mind and flickering lights on the console. "I know you didn't have time to ask…just never liked being tricked. I'm sure you understand."

She was too busy to really reply (in that unique way She had), the effort to dematerialize putting a severe strain on even Her basic systems, as Jack could feel by the minimal loss of gravity for a two second count, Her Rotor struggling through the simplest commands. He finally toggled the Plotter (for auto-stability) and moved two red levers up, before slapping the third in a downward position, a helpless grin creeping across his face as he grabbed what looked like a boat's outboard throttle control (bonus lights on top) and yanked it down bracing for Her take-off.

Laughter, born of relief (and that warm, crazy joy that had never quite faded over the years away), escaped him as the familiar grinding wheeze of dematerialization filled the control room, console platform shaking, tossing him into the protective railing as the TARDIS launched Herself away from the rock that had imprisoned Her (and the Doctor) for over two weeks.

Jack looked at the view-screen above his head as a sequence of numbers jumbled across the surface before settling into a view of the Vortex. A 'map' of sorts flickered to life, destination highlighted as a blinking white dot in the center of the stars, before zooming in to show a side-view of Earth. Symbols (a sequence of concentric circles and lines that he vaguely recognized), flew rapidly across the screen – just under the image of his designated home-planet – wavering and 'blipping' before unscrambling to read out as the latitude and longitude coordinates to Cardiff.

Right over the Rift.


	4. Chapter 4

**~Part Four~**

_He thought he had found a way out. He thought that Koschei had found someone -_

_No, that was right. Koschei had not been Koschei for a long, long time. He was...he was -_

Evil.

_No, that wasn't right either._

_But it must be._

_His head hurt so much, his throat was so, so _dry_._

_He was so sure he had fallen down that old mine shaft at the estate. But if he had, that was forever ago (yesterday); that was another time, another man._

_Or was it?_

_He had been so sure. Just he had been so sure that he had been rescued. But it was _dark _again._

_He had been tricked by the Spector._

_He had been warned about them (a millenia ago, a week ago), they tricked you – they played with your mind when your Time came. He had thought there had been light, that there had been sound...a Voice -_

My Doctor.

_But he was wrong – it was another Trick._

_His throat was so _dry_._

_"Susan," Theta-The Doctor-Theta gasped. "Where are you, girl? Speak to me!"_

_He struggled to get off the hard bed he was laying on, hindered by some contraption that had locked over his legs. He found the strength to push it off and heard a screech of metal against metal, then the sounds of something heavy collapsing on his right._

_Was he in a prison? Where was he?_

And why was it _dark_ again?

_"Tricks – all tricks! Sarah! Sarah Jane – we've got to...we've got to get out of here! K-9! K-9 come!" He could hear the panic in his voice, the rasp of sand over rock of what was left of his voice; but his Father's Lessons were long gone and far away._

_Futile, if he had reached this point._

_There had been the Dark, then Light-Sound-the Ring of the Voices of Home...then Dark, again._

_He struggled out of the bed (gurney? apparatus? death machine?) and felt his hearts kick in on high, pounding out of rhythm as he staggered to his feet, only to have his head smack off of another immobile object._

_He blinked stars out of his eyes, the blow sending streaks of white and blue lights through his mind, behind his eyes and he had to stifle a shout of pain._

_They could be listening._

_They could be watching._

Who are They?

_He had to find a way out of here. Find a way out of the Dark – Jo would know...she was uncanny, that girl._

_No, wait – he was confused again._

_His aching head throbbed unmercifully, worse now after the whack it took. His mouth was so, so dry – legs weak, watery, his hearts racing, racing. He stumbled to the left, away from the (machines?) and the bed-trap, hands splayed in front of him – eyes wide and unseeing; too afraid to use his extra senses -_

The Nothingness.

_In case he got caught out that way. They could use that against you, They could hurt you –_

'Have hurt me._'_

_With your own mind. Bend it back against you. But there were worse things...much, much worse things They could do -_

_The Spector could come back at any time._

_He would take him before the Judgement and he would fail (somehow, he knew this), and he would forever be lost to The Vortex; no ending in sight, falling through Time over and over and over and -_

_He sobbed drily, no longer able to fight the fear and confusion in the endless, endless Dark. They had abandoned him...his friends, his Companions (his loves – for he did, he loved all of them, even as he destroyed them), and wasn't that right? Wasn't that _fitting_? Proper?_

_His searching hands found nothing in front of him, but his weak legs found something blocking his way. Hard edged surfaces cut into his thigh and right hip, his left foot slamming into the same unyielding surface and he went sprawling, encountering more obstacles and hard surfaces as he wheeled madly, trying to find his balance. His right elbow knocked into something, just as his left knee collided with something else, left hand hitting the same object on his way down and he landed on his ass, the back of his head slamming into the side of (what he assumed to be) his bed/prison._

_He had a flashing recollection of having already hit the back of his head -_

White lights, something Singing and Soothing, even as the Spector, the Thing with No Time and All Time haunted him with a face that was familiar and yet not; then Pain, then...the Dark.

_He wrapped his left arm around his legs, drawing himself into a tight ball as he bit down on his right hand to stop himself from crying out in pain or just wailing for someone – _anyone_._

I don't...I don't know what to do -

_"That's a new feeling..." He whispered, words familiar and yet not._

_Everything was _familiar_ yet _not_._

_"Help me." He whimpered, shame flushing his face, spreading a chill through his hearts. "Somebody, please..._help me_."_

_He sobbed drily, too dehydrated for tears to come, air too thick in his dry throat. He keened in weighted grief (quietly, so quietly), rocking (ever so slightly) in the Dark of This Place._

_Nothing was real – but Everything was real._

_"Susan...Jo...Benton...Sarah...please," he rasped, unsure if they were/had been real._

_Was it all a dream – was _he _a Dream?_

_Terror and confusion left him exhausted, and his grief over things that were or had never been left him only that much more drained and cold. He had no idea how long he had been here, in This Place; his sense of Time failing him again as he sat forever ago, for a few minutes, in the prison of his failed memory._

_Snatches of words and images, times and places assaulted him as he stared into the Dark, ever aware that They could come back – that the Spector could find him again; though he was almost too tired to care. Everything ached and throbbed, his hearts thudded in painful gallops (so out of synch), as his head spun with too much and yet too little information and...no one was going to come for him._

_No one good, that was._

_"Help me," he murmured, soft into the muffled, echoing Dark. "Please..."_

_Another few minutes stretched and breathed around the Black; he held his breath with it, waiting –_

For what?

_For something, anything to happen. He couldn't (wouldn't) fight them; he wouldn't even know where to begin – but anything, anything would be better than the endless darkness and confusion and fear. He should refuse to go down like this, cowering in some hole like a wild animal, but he was tired, he was (old) worn down; even his body was rebelling against him._

_Maybe he could just lay down, right here and wait...for just a minute. The Spector would come, yes, maybe he could find a way out when it did – but that was a lot of 'maybe' for so little to go on. He would just rest (he had to rest) for just a minute; then maybe he could find his hope again, maybe he could find a way to make (be at ) peace when he wasn't so exhausted, so confused and so, so old down to his bones._

_He had barely gotten himself lowered (carefully) to the floor, when the world quaked around him and something heavy landed across his lower back. With a cry of pain, he was sent sprawling, the same point on his head he had injured minutes before (forever ago) when climbing out of the device (bed?machine?toture rack?), meeting the floor before he could brace himself. He heard the thud more than he felt it, then he didn't hear or feel anything else._

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

It seemed to take forever for the TARDIS to 'touch down'.

The ride through The Vortex was longer and rougher than he remembered, the Old Girl wheezing and staggering her way through the Time-Tunnel until She finally popped out on the other side; a little worse for wear for the tumbling and shaking She received in the Vortex, Her stabilizers an unnecessary function for the actual take off and landing procedures.

"Destination: Cardiff, Earth, 21st Century. Time is 15:00 hours Sol Time rotation," The Interface droned out of nowhere, image fizzing and sputtering from lack of power. Jack jumped and glared at the unflinching countenance (when it stabilized), muttering unpleasantries under his breath that got him an equally withering glare in return, as It rattled off the exact coordinates of their landing point. "All sensors functioning, power minimal for materilisation, please prepare for landing."

Jack raced around the controls, flipping switches and levers where indicated by the nudges of the TARDIS and the (once more) guiding lights on Her Main Control Hub.

"Okay, okay - almost there, baby. You're doing great," Jack soothed as the TARDIS rumbled to Herself, roundels flashing in (what felt like) warning. Most of the remaining power had been depleted while they had spun through the Vortex, so fully realized materilization was going to be sketchy at best. The fact the old Type 40 had made it through the Vortex at all was clearly a miracle, but Jack wasn't looking to count his blessing just yet. He needed to get them landed and the medbay turned back on before he'd do that.

He turned the two knobs that looked like part of an old-fashioned faucet set and type in the coordinates indicated by the Interface, hitting 'Enter' before pulling something that looked like the knob of an old pinball machine.

"I'll say this...at least this one is more fun – though it does looked designed by a twelve-year old," the Captain mused. "Oh well, here goes nothing!"

He then hit a bell, yanked another lever and attached himself to the console as she rocked and shook, engines wheezing as they tried to gather enough power for one final jump. The Interface flickered out then back in again, pixilised face impassive as it gave one final series of (broken) instructions, following up with safety measures like a damned flight attendant as the lights inside the main console room flashed and flared in an uncoordinated pattern.

" - all sentient...and life-forms brace...emergency landing." The Interface intoned, voice crackling in and out of being along with It's form. "All...rerouted...safe...materilization. Interface powering – "

And then it was gone in a flash of light as the control room dimmed and hummed, two, three of the lights in the roundels nearby popping like fireworks as the old TARDIS wheezed and coughed to Her destination. Her Rotor jiggled and swayed in its housing as it descended and rose, stopping only once as it tried to gather the necessary power to materilise.

Jack hardly noticed the lights going out, didn't pay any mind (except maybe a mild relief) when the Interface shut itself off – everything he had focused in the Rotor and the lights of the console. If something went wrong that Rotor would be the first thing to stop and if that happened, he'd go out of his way to find the Doctor (even as the Old Girl came apart around them), and say goodbye and sorry and all the thousand and one things he'd always wished he could say – to his team, to those he loved. But no one would understand more than the Time-Lord; and when the end came, where else would he want to be?

At least he could say he gave it his best shot.

It took an eternity – even longer than sailing through the Vortex – and he was flying blind. The viewscreen had powered down after they had reached their first destination point and he was lost in the dark, unsure if they were even landing in the right place. A thousand things could have gone wrong – he could have typed in the wrong coordinates, hit the wrong levers, pushed the wrong buttons; so he concentrated on the Rotor and put his faith in the TARDIS. It was all up to Her in the end, all he had to do was wait and hope he had done his part well.

His faith was rewarded only a minute or so later when She set up to materilise, that wonderful screeching groan that was Her habit when 'parking' telling him that it had all gone well. It had turned out fine – they were safe.

She landed with a mild boom, whole structure shaking as She inserted herself neatly on top of the Rift, hardly being there nan-seconds before She opened up her Time-Ports. Arctron energy swirling through the bottom of her engines to be funneled through her main housing, lights flickering back on in response to the surge of new power as She refueled Her dying cells. It was a beautiful sight, a glorious display of light and color -

But Jack wasn't there to see any of it. He didn't even poke his head out the door to see if the weather was fine (or the usual drizzle). Jack had one thought and one thought only: It was the thought that had brought him to Hell, it was the thought that had him pulling himself and another man out of said Hell – it was the reason he had fought to get the TARDIS to a safe location where She could get Her bearings back.

And that thought was: Find the Doctor.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

Jack didn't remember the running dash through the corridors.

He didn't remember the lights winking on with each footfall, as the TARDIS rerouted power to guide his way.

He didn't remember finally stumbling into the doorway of the medbay, stifled shout on his lips (so he wouldn't wake the healing Time-Lord).

He barely remembered his shock at seeing the disarray of the formerly prisitine and gleaming room; machines overturned and sparking dangerously on the floor, medicines and bandages and all a manner of things (both recognised and not) tumbled carelessly out of cabinets and drawers – the landing rougher here than in the console hub. He barely remembered any of that, but he did remember one thing out of all the chaos of that room.

He remembered finding the Doctor.

He remembered hauling him out from under the over-turned bed (wrenching his back when he did so) and feeling for a pulse, mouth dry with fear when he couldn't seem to find one. The Doctor's face so gray and _old_under the newly powered glare of the white lights overhead.

He remembered finding his pulse and nearly crying with relief. He remembered the TARDIS pushing at his mind and dashing once more (all over again) through the corridors with the Doctor in his arms, lighter than ever and so very _faded_with each breath he struggled to take. Almost like he was disappearing right in front of him.

He remembered running and running and lights leading the way – TARDIS humming in sorrow and shock and urgency; Her song pouring through his heart (his one and only heart pounding its lonely way in his chest with each stride of his legs) and up through the soles of his feet, pushing him faster and faster until (as if in a dream), a Door materilized in front of him.

He remembered entering the Door and laying the Doctor on a raised platform in the middle, before backing away (reluctantly) at the TARDIS urging, his last glimpse of The Time-Lord muddled and confusing – Jack's mind registering only a haze of white light around him, sure he was hearing what must be the Voice of the TARDIS as the Door closed, sealing the Doctor in and shutting the Captain out.

But he remembered.

Later he would come to know that Door and what it contained as the Zero Room.

Also known as the Room of Last Resort.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

It was a full 24 hours before Jack was allowed back in to get him.

But he hadn't known that at the time.

He dozed fitfully against the door, before waking with an ugly ache in his back, the pain right above his hips like rusty, dull teeth against his spine. It took him a few minutes to haul himself up from the floor and (with one last wistful look at the Door behind him), make his way to the trashed medical bay with the supposed idea of finding Tylenol (or the equivilent thereof), amongst the scattered detris on the cabinets and floor.

An hour and a half later, Tylenol (oddly labeled iminitrinolinate) in his system with a nice coffee chaser from the galley, he had the medical bay back to (somewhat) pristine order. The only thing marring the overall look was the pile of broken machinery towards the back of the room, moved there with a few curses and some cuts and bruises before he finally called it 'good enough' and went in search of his old room.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your viewpoint), he found it pretty much the same way he left it, the only difference being the zapped Vortex Manipulator sitting on the dresser, tools laid out neatly around it to be worked on at his leisure (if such time could be allowed) and Jack had to suppress a smile at the sentimentality of the old machine; how She had always cared for him and accepted him – even when Her pilot had not.

"Sweet Old Girl," he murmured, breathing in the air of his old room and delighting that there were fresh clothes in the closet and toiletries in the half-bath. "You always have been so good to me."

He didn't bother to freshen up, though – the last 72 hours alone taking its toll on his overall mind and body. Usually one to at least brush his teeth and wash his face before calling it a day, Jack Harkness staggered his way to his old bed and fell across it face first with a grateful sigh, asleep before his head hit the pillow – boots still firmly laced to his feet.


	5. Chapter 5

**~Part Five~**

Just because the TARDIS allowed him to take the Doctor out of the Zero Room, didn't mean the ordeal was over – not by a long shot. Jack knew (from some very hard lessons – some of them at the hands of the man he was trying to help), that nothing is ever easy; but this was a strain of a different caliber.

The next 48 hours that he faced some were the hardest of his very long life, and Jack found himself thanking the gods more than once that he had thought to at least get some sleep before undertaking it, because neither he nor the Doctor would have survived the two days that followed; either from him strangling sense into the confused Time-Lord, or from Jack having his heart broken again and again.

But (truth be told) most of Jack's time (in the end) was spent waiting; waiting and hoping it would all come out alright. The rest of it (and maybe some of the worst of it) was left up to the Doctor – all Jack could do was standby until he was needed and make sure that he didn't hurt himself.

Which was very much a possibility under the circumstances.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

"Phantasmagoria!" The Doctor screamed, eyes wide with fear and anger; voice cracking with the force of his shrieks."_Abomination_! You will never take me! Susan! _Susan_! Run! Run girl! Vile Thing! I shall dispatch of you myself! How _dare_you...you, you –"

Jack stood off to one side of the main medical bay, nursing an aching and cracked jaw from where the Time-Lord had punched him; the same Time-Lord who now twisted and writhed wildly on his bed, screaming at him in Old High Galleifreyan from his (hastily applied) soft restraints – eyes fire and ice and so, so ancient in his young face.

Jack quickly plugged his ears with cotton (a feeble protection at best), while the Time-Lord raved and thundered in his own language, his curses and howls echoing throughout the corridors of the TARDIS, the ship humming Her own distress at each renewed volley of venom. Like the previous time and the time before that, it didn't last – the Doctor's strength flagging as his body struggled to heal, even with the fresh strain he put it under every few hours.

The first time the Doctor had come awake he had done so with a ululating shriek (that seemed to never end), catching Jack off guard while he was fiddling about in the control room, learning the Old Girl's 'new systems'. He had put the Doctor in the medical bay and hung around until boredom set in two hours later – which led to wandering about for an hour and then to the main control room where he had happily esconced himself for the next four, paddling about under the new Rotor (okay, swinging in the maintenance chair), while having a peek under Her new hood.

He had been fussing about with her atom-colliders when the Doctor's voice echoed through the room as one long wail, startling Jack out of his tinkering with such violence that he almost brained himself on one of Her support struts; the long trek back to the medical bay reduced more to of a stagger than a run, as he tried to shake off the woozy feeling the generally indicates 'concussion' and navigate the twists and turns of the corridor at the same time.

It was then he learned that 'frail' or 'fragile' and 'The Doctor' should never be used in the same sentence as the Time-Lord tackled him to the floor, screaming for some girl named 'Susan' and someone else named 'Koschei' and demanding to know what he had done with them; the words Spector and Rassilion's Veil being tossed in randomly as the Time-Lord spat demands and pleas in a variety of languages – his own, Basic and English to name a few.

The subsequent wrestling match only lasted a few minutes, but Jack was forced to take a few weak blows to the head (which was already ringing) and torso, while trying to gently wrap the Doctor in a hold that would disable him, but not hurt him. This led to him practically hog-tying the screaming alien as he thrashed and hissed, then tossing him back onto the bed; where restraints were introduced to keep him from doing more violence to either Jack or himself. Eventually the Doctor went hoarse, then unconscious – the strain of his fit showing in the grey of his lips and under his eyes – his body jerking and twisting even in his blacked out state. But this, too, only last for a mere few minutes as much needed sleep finally over-rode whatever survival instinct had kicked into play.

Just in case, Jack gave him a sedative and moved out of the way of the machines (that still functioned), as they scanned and rescanned the Time-Lord, before more complicated machines folded out of the ceiling above, working busily to get his hearts back to normal rate and ease his oxygen flow.

After that, Jack opted to stay in the medical bay, letting the machines fuss over him long enough to repair his banged about skull and zap his back (which had begun to sing again), back to normal; sending the electric throb back down to a dull ache. He chose a bed closest to the Doctor and left the room long enough to get a pot of coffee and his Manipulator, spending what little time he had left before the next fit trying to get the damned thing nominally functional again.

The next fit had the Doctor hollering about some Arc of Infinity thing – and how Omega (presumably Jack) couldn't fool him – before he tried to come off of the bed again, the restraints Jack had (accidentally) left in place, stopping him short of toppling off the bed and taking the whole contraption with him. He cursed (at least the Captain guessed that's what the rattling, clicking noise was) in some unknown language, while struggling with the restraints – any attempts to soothe him going unheard. He didn't even seem to _see_Jack anymore, his eyes looking through and beyond him to some monster in his mind; threats and swearing eventually petering off into pleas and out right begging – his tears the most shocking thing Jack had seen so far and one that he never wanted to see again.

The Doctor looking through him was bad enough (an old pain, but one he had learned to live with), but the sight of the proud Time-Lord weeping was enough to bring him to his knees. Again (finally) the Doctor passed out, body too weary to even fight in his sleep and Jack was granted a reprieve for another four hours. But when those four hours passed and found the Doctor fighting phantoms that existed only in his mind (or in his long past), Jack learned the hard lesson that he could never seem to grasp: Fate thought She was funny. And once more he had to listen to the Doctor cry bitter tears over something that had happened so long ago, Time should have left it buried (that was, if it had ever happened at all).

He knew if the Time-Lord ever fully became conscious during these fits, he would be out on his ass without so much as a 'here's your hat, what's your hurry', as the Doctor was a fastidious old thing that embarrassed easily and forgave indiscretion never; one of the odd quirks that Jack had grown used to during his travels with the man. He could be the ultimate in joy and the most fearsome creature if crossed – but he was a private man who locked his sorrows within, selfishly withholding the worst aspects of himself _to_himself – and Jack was getting a front row ticket to it all.

And all he could do was dig in his heels and hang on, each fit leaving him exhausted and troubled, his own body aching as he struggled to stay still and out of the way; letting the Doctor ride out the worst of his fevered imaginings. It was a hell of a lot harder than it sounded and Jack was beginning to appreciate the patience and emotional work it took to see someone in such pain and unable to do anything about it. He figured (during one of those times he was left to a stifling peace, awaiting the next fit), that it must be downright awful to have to deal with such helplessness when you didn't know the person – and he wondered if there was anyone out there that could appreciate the hell of not only knowing the individual, but depending on them (howvever remotely) as much as he did the Doctor. His one constant in his long life – knowing this man was out saving the stars.

And so he stayed on, watching over the Doctor as he woke to nightmares and horrors beyond his imagining, (fultilely) soothing him when he could, attending to him when he fell unconscious again, his heart heavy in his chest as he began to wonder if he would ever wake up from this at all. If saving him from that awful, dark and airless place was too little, too late; if he had failed his old friend just when he needed him most.

These thoughts plagued him as he let the machines heal the tiny crack in his jaw and mend the bruised areas around it (the irony being these same machines couldn't seem to fix their owner) and wonder why no one had every thought to invent a machine to heal heartbreak. It was a silly thought (and one that showed how tired he was), so he reattached the restraint that had come loose enough for the Doctor to wiggle free and sock him one, rolled the tray with his Manipulator and tools out of the way (in case he needed to get to his feet fast..._again_), and laid down on the bed positioned next to the sleeping Time-Lord; hoping a few hours of shut eye would help him through the next round of terrors he couldn't fight.

Needless to say, his own sleep was fitful and not real rest, his subconscious reacting to the things he had witnessed for the past day and a half; his dream-self as shackled and helpless as his waking self, forced to witness terrible things that he would (thankfully) be unable to remember upon waking. The only thing he _did_know (when he jerked awake a few hours later), was that it was quiet, hauntingly so – and his uneasy dreams led to morbid thoughts and fancies that he was unable to shake until he had checked on the Doctor.

But he laid (almost stiffly) on his impromptu bed, too afraid to go and see for himself if he had failed. If his attempt to save the Doctor had fallen apart; the best parts, the most wonderful aspects of the Time-Lord left behind like garbage on that rotten void of a moon/asteriod/planet. It was (to date), Jack's greatest fear – to have saved nothing but the Doctor's shell. And even though that possibility was a thin one at best, it niggled at him like a tooth-ache; the idea that his (and the Doctor's) luck had finally run to the ground.

He breathed into the dim light of the medical unit (mildly noted with a mental 'thank you' to the Old Girl for Her kindness), gathering his courage by degrees until he could haul himself off of the bed, boots landing soundlessly on the floor as he inched his way to the Doctor's side. He moved quietly so as not to disturb him if he was still asleep, though as he had noticed the hour and how it was almost past that time for the next fever dream. Even the TARDIS seemed to hold Her breath as he approached him, ready for anything -

'_That's a lie._'

– bracing himself for another fist to the face or even a kick to his mid-section, the pacifistic alien's propensity for violence almost as shocking as his tears; though thoroughly understandable for his confused and fevered state of mind, as far as Jack was concerned.

So Jack himself was confused (and even more wary) to discover the Doctor awake (still silent and openly exhausted), but awake; his gaze clearer than it had been since Jack had last seen him with a different face, with different eyes. But the patient sorrow and steady calm was what set the Captain back a few paces mentally, the new features too young and innocent-looking to hold such weight behind them.

"Ahh, Jack," the new Doctor whispered, small smile breaking across his face even as his eyes shuttered, any sembalance of what he was thinking locked down tight before Jack could even guess at them. "You have come. Is it...is it time to go?"

"Go where, Doctor?" Jack asked carefully, unaware his voice had dropped to a hushed tone; even the TARDIS' hums nothing but a distant blur in the background.

"Beyond the Veils – to the Seat of Judgement," the Doctor murmured more to himself than to Jack, his hand lifting off of the sheets in a beseeching gesture – eyes boring through Jack's own as if to read his very thoughts. "I know I have failed – I have...made peace with that –"

"No, Doctor," Jack gritted, trying to push air past the lump in his throat so his tongue could form words with it, unsure of what the Doctor thought he was, but knowing it wasn't something to be celebrated. "You have never failed."

"That...is for Rassillion to decide," the Doctor chided, voice gentle and eyes too peaceful for Jack's liking. "The Spector...the Spector of my failures is here before me – what else can it be?"

"I don't know who this Spector is suppose to be Doctor, but from everything I heard, Rassillion was a dick; can't even judge a cake-contest – so what right or say does _he_have over anything?" Jack retorted, heart thumping painfully in his chest at the idea of being the Doctor's escort to the end of the line (as it were) and unable to accept it. They were here, alive, right now; the Doctor would lay down and die over his own dead body – and Jack would still be kicking and screaming as they both got dragged off to the AfterLife.

The Doctor seemed confused by his statement (and a little shocked at what Jack assumed was an out and out blaspheme), but he shook it off and gave Jack a smile that could light up the world, sending Jack's heart thudding a whole new way as he took the Doctor's out-stretched hand into his own, gripping it tight as if to never let go.

"I am glad it's you," the Doctor replied, eyes lit with gratitude as he squeezed Jack's fingers, his smile dimmed but no less radiant for all that. "I never – I never got that chance to apologize –"

"Doctor –" Jack pleaded. "Please don't."

"I was awful to you, treated you horribly and I...I had no right to do that. Before we – before we go, I have to ask. Will you ever forgive me?"

"I forgave you a long time ago, Doctor," Jack rasped, wiping irritably at his eyes, even as he smiled at the honest hope in the Time-Lord's face. He had never thought he would get asked for forgiveness, he had laid aside any blame for the Doctor's actions years before, setting about (unconsciously) to work towards his own forgiveness – finding peace and love he would never have otherwise known, if it weren't for the madman in his magic blue box.

"I forgave you – and I forgave myself...and you, old friend, aren't going anywhere if I can help it."

But the Doctor had already slipped back into sleep.

Jack tensed for a moment, but relaxed again as he noticed the machines stayed silent and still – the Doctor's rest a true and deep sleep of the healing kind. He cast about for something to sit on and found a tall chair literally one foot from him, the TARDIS anticipating his need before he did – and he found himself directing another heart-felt thank you to the wonderful machine that looked out for them all, Her silent support and caring everything he had ever needed to call home.

He sat down with a small sigh, fingers still entwined with the Time-Lord's, soaking up the peace and stillness while he still could. Soon it would be time to go home and face Gwen's wrath at his lateness. But for now, he could hold the hand of his friend and pretend he was back _home_again; his place (once more) at the Doctor's side, watching over (and being watched over) by his wonderful, fantastic machine.

He sat like that for a long, long time – lost in his own memories of the past, imagining a future that could never be, before creeping away to his own bed to dream dreams of peace and adventure, the blue box always in the distance; the TARDIS humming to him in his dreams while She worked in her repairs, refueling and soaking up the energy of the Rift.

**DW~TW~DW~TW~DW**

When Jack woke up, it was once again quiet and dim in the med-bay – but there was one difference that caught his attention immediately: The Doctor was gone. Panic bounced randomly in his brain as he wrestled with sheets that he didn't remember covering himself with, cursing fluently in Basic until he finally ripped himself free of their confounded cottony grip. He then started to dash to his feet, only for said feet to hit the cold floor and bounce back up again out of sheer reflex, muscles creaking in protest at his decidely rash and hurried actions.

Jack blinked in muzzy confusion, staring down at his bare toes, while wondering when he had take the time to remove his boots and socks. His brain was coming up blank on that aspect, so he looked around the room for a second time, trying to toggle his mind from 'sleep' to 'awake' while he did so – which was always hard to do without coffee.

Which was sitting on his rolling table. With a cup. Next to his...fixed?...Vortex Manipulator.

_Shit_.

Christmas had come and he'd Rip Van Winkled through it.

He downed a cup of (hot, but not too hot), coffee (Colombian Mountain blend – freshly ground) and located his socks and boots, hastily pulling them on. He then located his button-up (which had also been missing), and braces (both of them looking fresh and smelling clean, which was more than could be said for him), throwing them on with practiced ease, snagging his coat off of the foot of the bed as he stumbled (still groggy), from the room – the search for the Doctor (once again), his main priority.

He found the Time-Lord pretty much where he'd figured he'd be and was all set to bark at him, when the Doctor distractedly waved off his protests about bed rest and it being 'too soon for him to be monkeying around' – pointing to a spanner on the step near Jack's head and mumbling around wires in his mouth about synchrinocity and Arctron Flux. With a sigh, Jack handed the instrument over, jumping out of the shower of sparks that resulted from the Doctor's fiddling and waited him out, sure he wouldn't be heard over the muttering and cooing noises the Doctor was making at the Old Girl as he rerouted Her capicitors.

After sufficient mumbling and fussing about, the Doctor removed the goggles he had been wearing (giving him a steam-punk, mad-professorish look that Jack appreciated way too much), sweeping past Jack to rush upstairs and fiddle about with something _else_; producing yet another shower of sparks below. The Captain followed him back up the steps in a more sedate pace, wordlessly breaking off from the main console area to head towards the galley he had found two days before; knowing only sufficient amounts of coffee and time would get him through the (inevitable) upcoming conversation. The Doctor would make polite noises, snark at him a bit (while never really looking at him), and send him on his way – no explanations as to why he had been where he had been and certainly no mention made of the apology he had made just hours previously.

All Jack had to do was gear himself up for it – and after another cup or two of excellent coffee, it might be half-way manageable. Not bearable (not by a long-shot), but at least manageable; which was pretty much the extent of his current relationship with the Doctor. He was allowed to admire him (or be pissed off at him, or even despise him) from afar and the Doctor was allowed to tolerate his existence from that same immeasurable distance. It wasn't perfect, it certainly wasn't what Jack wanted, but it was what the Time-Lord _needed_...so he could go along with it. Gods knew he had done so (many, many) times before.

It was just the way it was – and he was not going to lose his dignity (or sanity), for wishing for something different. Besides, he was over a week late getting home. And with his Manipulator out of contact for so long, he was pretty sure he was going to have to hand over his head (and other bits) to Gwen when he got back.

As soon as he got done with his coffee.

And dammit, he was stalling.

So much for his vacation – next time, he'd follow Rhys' advice and go the nice, safe and utterly boring Bahamas. Though, knowing his luck, he'd spend his time even there fending off hoards of aliens that liked to snack on oiled up sun-worshippers with an addiction to rum.

Yup. He was old.

"Ahh, there you are!" The Doctor boomed cheerily, completely non-plussed when Jack spilled coffee all down his fresh shirt and sputtered a hello back; all day dreams of Bahamas, aliens and memories of that place _before_it became that sand-encrusted tourist trap, lost in furious dabbings at his legs and chest with a pile of napkins as his flesh registered 'hot coffee' before he could do much about it.

"I was wondering where you'd gone off to," the Doctor rattled on, averting his eyes as though Jack was doing a strip-tease instead of mopping up painful disaster. "I was thinking –"

And he was gone that quick, his voice trailing down the corridor after him, as Jack sat sighing in his puddle of coffee, the impending conversation coming sooner than he'd like. He slurped the rest of his drink down before swinging by his room to grab a new shirt, (writing the pants off as a disaster that could cover itself, as soon as they dried to something less embarrassing), then dashed back to the console room; only to find the Doctor sitting in a jump-seat across from the Zig-Zag Plotter, ridiculous chin propped on one fist as he glared moodily at the silent and unmoving Time Rotor.

Jack made his way to a jump-seat not far from him, sitting down carefully (pants cold and clinging to his legs) to wait for the Doctor's excuse to dump him off this time. He could very well save him the trouble and just leave (his Manipulator _was_repaired after all – and by the man sitting to his right, just within reach), but he figured he'd give him the honor of dumping him first. For old times sake, if for nothing else.

He was sad he wouldn't get a chance to enjoy the TARDIS' fresh look, or the fresh face of Her main inhabitant – but Jack hadn't gotten this far in life without learning the lesson of disappointment and all that it entails. It never got easier, but he had learned to deal with it. And when it came to the Doctor it was a lesson he was forced to face again and again; Fate being fickle and all. It was funny – the Time-Lord was both his savior and his undoing all at the same time. A mess of contradictions.

Well, Life Wasn't Fair and the Universe Didn't Run Around Jack Harkness – much less what he had thought all during his long (and hard, but enjoyable life); he'd had _years_to bear or drop a grudge in.

The least he could do was hear the man out.

After a long stretch of time (Jack's pants were half-dry), the Doctor spoke – his voice pitched low and almost apologetic, his gaze never wavering from their fixed point on the Rotor.

"I was waiting for River," he began, cheeks flushed slightly as though embarrassed. "Old-new friend of mine, you haven't met her yet – and I was sure I had gotten the times right."

He chuckled to himself, leaning back in his seat and smooth his trousers, legs crossed at the ankle as he kicked them against the floor, his eyes shifting to Jack's (for just a moment) before drifting back to the unmoving Rotor; the TARDIS humming and whispering to Herself around them.

"I'm always sure I get the times right – this time I was very, _very_wrong, as you can well see." He frowned this at his knees before daring to look at Jack again, hesitant smile quirking his lips up at the corners. Jack remained silent, watching the smile falter before the Doctor restlessly jumped up from his chair, pacing a couple of steps before leaning against the console, arms wrapped defensively around his chest.

"It's known as Xachlian Five...it was a well populated planet, once upon a time. I even knew one or two merchants that came from there that – well, never mind. It's not important now, it is?" The smile was humorless now and self-depreciating as the Doctor uncurled one arm to stroke the console, fingers delicate along the panels before he tucked it back into place, furrowing his brow as he tried to explain his actions that had led to him being stranded.

"It is a Void Star. A planet with a collapsed wormhole in its center. The wormhole is mostly dormant – but sometimes properties of it bleed through; thus the loss of air, light and Time that I'm sure you experienced." He cleared his throat, unwinding his arms and setting his shoulders as if he had decided something. Jack's insides shriveled as those cool, green eyes settled on his, the Time-Lord's face impassive and too reminiscent of the Hologram as he continued.

"I was so sure – I had convinced myself that River would be there any minute." The Doctor paused, eyes haunted as he relieved whatever horrors he had experienced in that hole. The fact that he had spent two weeks there almost unfathomable to Jack, who had barely spent two hours there without feeling like he had lost his mind.

"I should have died there, Jack. I miscalculated my landing, putting the TARDIS and myself in danger – and my foolishness should have, well almost _did_, signal my end. Instead, I did something even _more_foolish and dangerous. I sent out a distress call – and you answered it."

The Captain shifted uncomfortably, flushing in second hand embarrassment, as though he had been caught doing something naughty, instead of saving a friend. He resented the feeling, even as he knew that was not the Doctor's intention – the Time-Lord's apology (and thanks) clear and heart-felt, his admission to a mistake as startling as if he had asked Jack to a rousing game of strip-poker. Jack felt out of his depth, his place in the conversation rocky and he resented _that_even more.

"You'd better not be apologizing for me coming to your rescue, Doctor," Jack rumbled, wishing he had just grabbed his Manipulator and Jumped already. All this dancing was futile. He knew where the conversation would lead in the end – why was he putting himself through this? "It was random chance and I'd do it again in heart-beat –"

"Even if you knew who it was you were rescuing, Captain Harkness?" The Doctor asked, voice gentle even as his eyes were hard.

"Yes. Any time – every time." Jack stated firmly, rising to his feet to throw on his coat, decision made before he had even fully processed he was deciding anything. "May not mean much –"

"Means everything," the Doctor murmured, but once again, he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Jack. "Is it...is it time for you to go already, Jack?"

Jack half-turned on his heel, straightening his lapels as he snapped the heavy coat into place, trying (and failing) to keep the incredulous look off of his face – and half resenting _that_, too. That the Doctor could always, always do that; spin him around, leave him off-balance and disarmed...before he just left him. He may have a new face, he may be a different personality even – but he was still the same man underneath. Jack couldn't fault him that, the layer of years hadn't changed him much, either; something he was regretting and rejoicing in with each passing day.

"I think...I think it was time for me to go before I even arrived, Doctor." He paused, smiling to take the sting out of his words, to show he understood. "But I have to say, I like what you've done with the Old Girl – She looks...happy."

"You don't," was the blunt retort and Jack paused again, turning away to yank on the sleeves of his coat, settling it into place – his armor and deflector of all things.

"Ahhh, I'm just mad that I lost my vacation – even if this has been quite the adventure. Next time though, could you signal me to rescue you from an idyllic paradise? The last place you chose was kind of a drag – being airless and spooky and all." He kept the laugh in his voice, though he was starting to get angry. The Doctor had no right to be 'concerned' with or about his feelings. He certainly had no rights to voice such concern – not after all this time.

"I'll work on that," was the dry response, just a hint of humor at the edges. "Say – you pick the next destination?"

Jack snapped at that – half-prepared to hear it, even as he wasn't prepared at all; and he grabbed the Doctor by his ridiculous tweeds, shaking him as he shouted into the Time-Lord's startled face, anger and grief and fear mixing together until he couldn't tell one from the other. And this..._this_was the danger of being around the Doctor. This was the reason he should have left the minute he saw his Manipulator fixed (a hint if there ever was one); Doctor gone from the med bay, as if he had never even existed in the first place.

"Don't you do that! You don't get to do that – not again!" Jack hissed, fury and despair at war with the need to just leave and never darken the door of this infuriating creature again. "Abomination – remember? Vile Thing? _Spector_? An impossible creature in the face of time itself? So you don't get to do this to me, not again!"

The Doctor let himself be shaken like a ragdoll, his ancient eyes kind and sorrowful as Jack ranted in his face; his understanding almost more than Jack could take. He wanted the Time-Lord to be furious, too – to make excuses for himself, to petulantly remind Jack of his apology a few hours before a life-time ago. Instead, he wrapped his hands around Jack's, his young-old face gentler and kinder than Jack had ever seen it; loneliness wrapping the steel of the Time-Lord's core in velvet, muffling all the remembered fiery hate of the Oncoming Storm.

"I thought," the Doctor said slowly, letting Jack get his breath back, though the Captain's grip never lessened. "When I first saw you – how one could be grateful for anyone to show up to rescue them. Anyone at all. And when I saw you..."

"You knew you were wrong," Jack finished hoarsely, closer to tears than he had been in awhile, not since Ianto, his grandchild –

"I knew I was wrong." The Doctor agreed, sad smile flickering at the edges of his lips as he tried to catch Jack's eyes with his own. "But do you know why?"

"No." Jack's heart was squeezing, squeezing, squeezing in his chest, his efforts to not bawl like a small child nearly breaking under the Doctor's smile – that smile of such affection and wonder, it was like he had turned back the clock; and that wasn't fair...not when the end was coming. Not when the inevitable would happen no matter what the Doctor said. This was just a version of letting him down gently, that was all. He should have left when he'd had the chance.

"I thought...I thought my time had come. That the face of my worst mistake had come back to simultaneously haunt me and escort me to face my death. And I – I had come to accept that, though it was a hard thing to accept. I had relived all my worst fears, I had been faced with all the battles I had lost and all the errors I had committed...there was just one that I couldn't see, it was _right there_- if only I had known what I was looking for." The Doctor smiled again, edges of sorrow and regret casting shadows in his eyes that shouldn't have existed and certainly not because of Captain Jack Harkness, ex-con man, rogue Time-Agent and leader of a ragtag band of self-described do-gooders (to quote Rex's less than elegant terminology).

"And then, suddenly – there you were. Captain Jack Harkness. All the timelines that ever were and all the ones that might never be wrapped around your all-too-human soul – and it just..._fit_."

"I'm sorry," Jack rasped, his heart broken under the Doctor's cruel-kindness, his words axing any hope to be anything but the abomination the Time-Lord saw him as. The fact that the Doctor would see him as the Grim Reaper come to lead him to the afterlife, only heaped more horror on Jack's head than he though he could take; his heart too grieved to hear anything else.

"No, Jack – _I'm_sorry," the Doctor soothed, long fingers threading through Jack's hair (grip so gentle and firm), to tilt his head so he could place a kiss just below his hairline; the gesture so familiar and wrenching that Jack almost jerked in surprise. The smell of stardust filled his nose, his own lips tingling in response/memory; the feeling of those cool, dry lips against his skin freezing his breath in his throat.

He almost missed the Doctor's apology (the second one in under less than twelve hours), so wrapped up was Jack in the feel of the Doctor's scratchy tweed in his fists, the lingering impression of the Doctor's kiss on his forehead, throat burning with the need to breathe – the lump lodged there making that almost impossible as he clung to the Time-Lord in stunned dismay. This was why he should have left when he had a chance. This was why he should have run. The Doctor was the only being left in the universe who could hurt him and make him come back for more; the only one who could leaving him reeling and off guard. The face didn't matter, nor did the outfit – it was always, _always_the same man underneath -

Or was it?

"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm sorry that I never took time to explain – that I never stopped to think about what my actions had done to you. All I saw was my mistake. All I saw was Rose and the Time-Vortex remaking and rearranging; doing things that I could never do. Things that should never _be_ done – and in the process of that, I lost my best friend. But that wasn't _his_ fault. That really wasn't anyone's fault – but how I behaved, how I reacted to it...that _was_my fault. I hurt you badly and in ways that should never be forgiven – but you have never once turned me away."

"You taught me," Jack gasped, clinging those tweed lapels as if they existed just to hold him up. "You taught me that –"

"No, Jack," the Doctor said softly, placing another kiss on his forehead, lips lingering for just a touch longer than necessary. "You taught _me_that."

The Doctor held him for a long time, the lights of the control room flashing in calm, hypnotic sequences as the Time-Lord whispered soothing nonsense into his stunned ears, rocking Jack as if he were a small child; arms never loosening, long fingers rubbing serene circles between Jack's shoulders as his voice became a blur of warmth. All Jack could do was hold on, let himself be held and comforted, even though every cell rebelled against that idea. This was a trick (it had to be), and any moment would be his last on the TARDIS, any moment would be his last in this warm clutch of the Doctor's arms. He needed to escape, he needed to leave before the illusion shattered around him.

In just a minute.

Just a one more minute.

The Doctor let him have enough time to pull himself back together and he found himself stupidly grateful for that – and more determined than ever to keep the last fifty two hours between the two of them. That was theirs and theirs alone. He had witnessed things that the Doctor would surely never let anyone else see, and the Doctor had (in turn) allowed the unshakeable Jack Harkness to come apart in his arms without a word to deter him.

He could be a funny old creature like that.

And it was on that one thought alone that Jack realized: He had his best friend back. He had a different face, a different voice and outfit to match; but he was the same man as before, even if a little older and wiser. And really, who wasn't older and wiser in this funny, topys-turvy relationship?

He had been guided back to his seat and given a moment to himself while the Doctor fussed and tinkered (unnecessarily) with the TARDIS' engines (new sonic in hand). The man almost seemed to _know_when Jack was fit for company again, popping back out to the main console area with a line of inane chatter at the ready; a steaming cup of fresh coffee -

_And where did he get that?_

– held in one hand as a peace offering or blessing, Jack couldn't tell which.

But that signaled the beginning of more understanding and better times with his best friend ahead; as well as a less heavy heart when they were apart. He could forsee long, late night conversations, thrilling, epic adventures and exhilarating debates over both in his future – and it felt as if a weight he had carried for a long, long time had lifted from his shoulders.

It hadn't miraculously eased all his hurt, nor removed all the dark times he had gone through – but it went a long way towards smoothing the path. And as far as Jack was concerned, that was more than enough for now. That was more than he had ever dreamed even _possible_– and he found himself grinning as he listened to the Doctor's prattle, the possibilities of this new regeneration more interesting as each sentence passed in rapid-fire exuberance.

The Doctor finally blinked to a stop, skidding slightly on the floor as he neared Jack; as though noticing the answering grin on the Captain's face, great coat across his knees, coffee untouched in his hand.

"Don't like the coffee, Jack?"

"Like the coffee," Jack laughed, tension long gone from his shoulders. "Loving the floor show more."

"Big tease," the Doctor huffed (ohh, he was a flirt!), eyebrows raised as he waved one hand around the room, hesitation in his smile, but knowing in his voice. "So! Have you thought where we are off to next?"

"Ahhh," Jack said, assuming a guilty look when his thoughts flashed to Gwen and his team back home. "Maybe...some other time? I really need to get home – got some people depending on me and I've been away for awhile."

"Oh." Disappointment had the Doctor's smile faltering before he nailed it firmly back into place, determined (as far as Jack could see) to not ruin the good mood. "Well...okay – but if you should change your mind –"

"So I'm not going to get the whole 'She's a time machine' bit?" Jack snarked in response.

"Humph," the Doctor said, that refreshing bluntness peeking through again. "That much is obvious, isn't it? But if you want to –"

"One more trip, Doctor," Jack laughed, caving when the Doctor flashed him a dignified pout that left out the dignity and went straight for the heartstrings. (Shameless, this one was.) "Just one more."

"Just one, then!" The Doctor gleefully agreed, spinning away on one foot with a clap of his hands, hitting switches and levers as he twirled past them; his enthusiastic, boyish grin infectious as he cranked his newly fueled and repaired machine back to life again. "Where to, Jack, me lad?"

"Anywhere She wants to go, Doctor," Jack grinned, watching the Doctor as he fired the old Type 40 up, Her beautiful new interior somehow fitting this regeneration like an old glove; even as it screamed 'Time Machine' all over like the other interior had not. She looked new, She looked content and Her erstwhile Companion looked even more so. This was the Doctor's element, this was where he belonged and Jack found he had not one regret after all, the whole adventure worth it from start to finish; just to see the Doctor and his TARDIS together as they should be – their gratitude silent, but there nonetheless.

You just had to know where to see it.

The Doctor and his TARDIS: First destination – _everywhere_.

"Though, ummm...Jack –"

"Yes?"

"Why exactly, are all of my good braces tied together in a knot?"

The Doctor emerged from the other side of the console, brow furrowed in confusion as he held up the 'rope' that Jack had used to rescue them both with (in more ways than one), and it took everything Jack had to not laugh, knowing the TARDIS had deliberately left them where the Time-Lord could find them.

Who said the Old Girl had no sense of humor?

So Jack bit back his laughter (with some difficulty), and swept the Doctor up into a bone-crushing hug, (ignoring his coat as it fell to the floor with a soft thump), before stepping back to observe the flustered creature with a serious, thoughtful look; mischievous twinkle in his eyes almost giving him away as the Doctor gaped at him in suspicion, the knot of braces dangling forgotten in his hands.

"Well, Doctor," Jack purred, hands coming up to hook in the braces the Time-Lord was currently wearing; pleased when his flirtatious grin was answered and matched with one of the Doctor's own. "That tale might take awhile."

"Than I guess," the Doctor said easily, eyes meeting his own, that mysterious, enigmatic smile never wavering once. "I guess it's a good thing that I own a Time Machine."

**~Finis~**


End file.
